Over The Edge: Introductions
by daikonrannosamurai
Summary: British Secret Service agent 007 may have gotten more than he bargained for in this mission... Enjoy a story with intrigue, action, and humor combining reality and pure impossibility.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note

The Secret Lair of the Author of this FanFiction

Somewhere Other than where You are

Sometime Other than when You are Reading This

Hello. This is my first FanFiction (ever) and I will admit that the writing at first will be a bit rough. It does get better, though. This first FanFiction of mine, though it was already done by the time I got around to typing this (or publishing it, for that matter), started out because all of my friends were writing FanFictions (or so it seemed).

I would like to inform you that there is a Prologue first, and then it starts into the actual story. The first chapter is also the most confusing that it will get. I will guarantee that.

Also, before publishing anything, I would like to inform you that I will only update every fortnight, with the sole exception of tonight, when I will be publishing this (obviously, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this), the Prologue, AND the first chapter, in celebration of the one year (and one month) anniversary of starting this FanFiction. Yeah, I'm late on this, and I'm lazy… but hey, we all are at some point in our lives…

Also, while I type this note, I am also working on my second FanFiction. This FanFiction, however, will not be published until AFTER this first FanFiction is done with publication. This is for the sole reason of it being a sequel to this FanFiction.

I don't want you to be confused when you start the second one, after all…

Thank you for reading, enjoy, and please comment on the end. All criticisms and praise accepted equally. (Monetary donations not necessary, but gladly accepted.)

Sincerely,

大混乱の侍

daikonrannosamurai


	2. Chapter 2

Prologue

London

MI6 Headquarters

M's Office

16:02:34

"With all due respect, Bond, I don't think that you're ready for this mission. I hate to say it, because you're one of the best agents we have, but, I can't assign it to you," said M with a grim look on her face.

Bond flinched, but not visibly. That kind of statement was like a death knell for an agent.

"What if I worked with another of our agents?" Bond asked.

"I already thought about it, but you don't work well with others. No, I don't think that I can do that."

"Well, if there is any chance I could do this mission, I would like to try anything to get it. It's kind of… personal."

"Very well, I'll assign you to the mission with–" M began, but was cut off by the intercom.

"M, 008 is here for his assignment," Moneypenny said, "shall I tell him to go in?"

"Ah. Perfect timing on his part," M said. She turned on her side of the intercom. "Yes, tell him to come in." She shut it off. "008 will be working with you on this assignment, Bond. He is the only agent to attain the rank of double-oh agent at a younger age than you."

At that moment, a young, tall man walked in to M's office. He looked to be about 20, with medium-length brown hair, and wearing a black blazer. He was handsome, with the collar of his dark teal shirt popped, no tie, but looking like a college student. This sent a shiver down Bond's spine. This was the kind of agent that was often underestimated by others due to their look. It was the most dangerous of all, a nonchalant, innocent look that could give a false sense of security to almost anybody. When he spoke, though, it was obvious that he was not from Britain.

"Ah, so this is the famous James Bond, Agent 007."

Little did Bond know it, but this would soon change his life irreversibly.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 1

London

MI6 Headquarters

16:26:37

Bond went to his office to pack for his mission. He didn't like the way this was going, being assigned to something with the youngest double-oh ever. _I mean, come on! He's only 17! Are they crazy? Sending someone like that into the field is like… pure insanity! _Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting Bond's train of thought.

"Yes, Bond here," Bond said, calming himself down.

"M wanted me to remind you that Q-Branch is waiting for you," said Moneypenny, on the other end, "so don't forget to drop by on your way out."

"Of course I will, Moneypenny, darling."

"Oh, and you're supposed to met 008 at his house."

"Yes, ye—Wait… you mean he has his own house!?" exclaimed Bond.

"Actually, I believe the word 'mansion' would describe it a bit better, but I still don't think that it does it justice," said Moneypenny.

"Alright, I'll do that, then."

He hung up. _Great. A kid who is a double-oh, has his own… mansion, I guess, and looks innocent enough to have just graduated from secondary school. This mission is going from _bad_ to_ worse.

London

MI6 Headquarters

Q-Branch

16:42:20

"Ah, hello, 007. Nice to see you again," said Q.

"Yes, well, it's good to see you again too. Let's cut to the chase, though, because I have to be at 008's… er, I _think_ it's a house, at 17:30. What am I getting for this mission?" said Bond.

"Thus we get to the reason I called you here. Q-Branch will not be equipping you for this mission at all. Agent 008 has insisted on doing so himself."

"Then why did you call me here?"

"I wanted to tell you a little about 008," said Q. "You see, we haven't ever seen him to equip him for a mission. He always equips himself at his house before a mission, and then gives Q-Branch what he used after the mission. It's where we get a lot of our ideas, actually, sorry to say. Also, he is very well trained. I think he would even be a match for you, Bond. He completes every mission he is assigned almost perfectly. It's why he has risen through the ranks so quickly. He doesn't appreciate delays, either. I advise you not to dawdle too much while on assignment with him."

"Why would I cause him to be angry over a delay?" Bond asked.

"Because you are often the cause of such delays, Bond. Anyways, I just wanted to warn you about that, and, good luck on your mission. You'll need it."

London

008's "Residence" (I'm not sure how to describe it)

17:31:49

Bond pulled up in front of 008's house and stopped his Aston Martin. Aside from the fact that his house was highly secluded, surrounded by 20 foot stone walls (that were also 10 feet thick and extended another 10 feet into the ground) with guard towers every 50 or so feet, and took up the space of about a city block (it was about that tall, too), it could have been a normal house. Oh, not to mention the fact that it had an entire wing that was extended over a small stream via I-beams and inch thick steel cables, two garage doors that were about the height of two semi trailers and about four wide, and was situated on a 720 acre plot (4 square miles) of heavily wooded land.

"Just who _is_ this kid?" Bond muttered to himself.

**A/N **I have to interrupt the story right now to explain a few things. One, I have a few characters in this story who I am modeling after my friends, with their permission, or at least, I think. Second, I know that up until this section of the chapter, it has been a bit serious, but that should change, with the exception of a few areas. It should get funnier once we add the other main character of this fan fic, namely, 008, for an appreciable amount of time. Once he has been added, you will be able to follow some of his thoughts, which quite frankly, will probably be hilarious for the most part (no refunds). Finally, I would like to thank you for even picking up this fan fic and reading it in the first place, because it is my first try at writing anything but a research paper that ended up being longer than one page. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment, and I will try to pay attention to them and take them to heart. Back to the story in… one line and 14 characters.

Bond walked up to the front door, which happened to be 10 feet tall, and knocked. _Is there anything about this house that has normal proportions?_ Bond thought to himself. Then the door opened. Bond walked in, cautiously. It was never a good sign when a door opened itself without any apparent means of doing so. Pulling his Walther PPK out, he crept forwards. Suddenly, from behind him, came the laughing of Goldfinger. Bond quickly spun around, and faced Goldfinger.

"Good day, Mr. Bond," Goldfinger said, walking forwards, "It is a pleasure to see you again."

"Wait a second. Didn't I kill you?" Bond asked.

"Ah, yes. About that. You did kill me," said Goldfinger, but something was wrong with his voice. Now he sounded like Baron Samedi. "The only problem is that I am not Goldfinger." By this time, his body _and_ voice had transformed, and he looked and sounded like Elliot Carver.

Suddenly, a young man seemingly stepped out of the wall. "PROXY*, stop it. You are confusing our guest," he said. PROXY transformed into a highly sophisticated looking droid as his holographic projectors shut off.

"Ah, Mr. Bond, how nice to see you here. I will show you to 008's study, where he is expecting you. Please follow me."

They went up a flight of stairs about four stories tall, took a left, and arrived at a door that seemed like it was made of solid steel. The young man opened it, and Bond saw that it was about a foot thick.

"Is there anything normal about this house?"

"Well, that depends on how you define normal. For someone like you, there will indubitably be a few things that you recognize as normal, but not very many. For someone like me, who rarely ventures outside of the grounds, everything seems very normal. I am sorry about PROXY, though, I thought that I had put him in the basement. I am sure that it was a thoroughly confusing experience," the young man said.

"Yes, it was… unique."

"Well, I am sure that it will not be the only thing, so please be prepared. Ah, here we are. This is where I say goodbye to you, Mr. Bond," the young man said with a grin on his face. He was gesturing at a door that looked a lot like the door into M's office.

Bond walked up to the door. It automatically opened, and he stepped into the room. The inside of the room looked very normal to Bond, except that the walls were lined with bookshelves two stories tall, with a balcony going around the tops of those, and more bookshelves on the… he guessed that it was the second level.

Suddenly, a small section of one of the bookshelves opened and 008 stepped out. At the same time, a hole opened in the floor and a very ornate desk and two chairs rose up into place where the hole was. Another very slim hole opened up and a flat screen TV came up out of it. Several recessed speakers also emerged into the room. 008 sat down behind the desk and motioned for Bond to sit in the other chair.

As Bond sat down, 008 began, "I am sure that you are wondering just who I am, to have a setup like this in my house. I will explain everything that you have seen up to this point, and a few things that you have not seen yet, before we move on. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes. I want to know how you got this kind of setup in the middle of a heavily forested patch of England without anybody ever noticing it, including Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"Ah, that is thanks to holographic projectors throughout the grounds. They make it look from the air like just another stretch of forest. As for who I am, though, you _should_ be most interested in that," 008 said.

"Yes, please. Just who _are_ you, anyway?"

"That is very simple. I am the author."

"What?!"

"I shall repeat myself. I am the author. I can show you a video clip of me three hours from now, while I will be writing this portion of the story."

008 pressed a button, and suddenly the TV turned on to an image of me sitting at my home computer typing this section of the story.

Bond gaped at the screen. "That… is you?"

"Yes."

Bond didn't know what to do. There was silence for a while, as Bond gawked at the screen.

Suddenly, my voice came out of the speakers, very irate. "Will you _please_ do something, so I can get on with the story? You sitting there just looking at the screen is getting _very _boring, and people won't like reading about that. So _please _GET _ON_ WITH IT!!"

008 pressed a different button, and the image on the TV went blank. "You see? I am the author of the story. Please look this way, Mr. Bond, and don't be surprised so easily. You could get killed like that."

"I am just… amazed at this…" Bond was at a loss for words.

"Turn of events?" 008 offered, "Yes, but you will have to get used to the paranormal if you are to survive more than two hours in this house." 008 smiled. "Oh well, I guess that explains just about everything that I was going to say to you, so please follow me." He pressed a button on his desk and stood up. "Please follow me."

As they walked towards the wall, the desk, TV, and speakers slid back out of view to where they came from. 008 pulled at a book, opened it, and put it back on the shelf, and the section opened up into a short hallway that ended with an elevator. As they approached it, the doors slid open, and they stepped in. The doors closed behind them, and the elevator automatically started downwards.

When the elevator reached the bottom of its run, the doors opened and they stepped out into a room the size of a large hangar. Bond looked down, because they were on a balcony about 3 stories up, and looked at what was on the floor. What he saw amazed him. There were hundreds of cars, arranged by maker, then by model, then by year made, and finally by color within that year. "Just how many cars do you have down there, and why so many different ones?" he asked.

"At last count, I believe that I had 1,643 working cars, with another 57 under repair, making for a total of 1,700, not all of them here."

"And when was the last count?"

"Just yesterday."

"And why so many?"

"That way I can drive different cars to confuse my enemy. Also, I can disguise myself in any country as almost any social class with any number of cars. Finally, none of the license plates register as being form here, so even if the car were to be taken, they would not be able to trace it to me, or England at all, for that matter. Also, the weapons systems hidden in the cars all have fingerprint ID's so that only I or anybody I approve of can use them, so even if they were to be discovered, nobody else can use them in the event of capture."

"What if they were to disconnect the fingerprint ID scanner?"

"It would activate a hardwired self-destruct timer in the car."

"What if they disconnected that?"

"The car would detonate immediately."

"Sounds like you have thought this through very well."

"Well, then, let us continue on to my 'personal Q-Branch,'" 008 said.

They went into the elevator again, only this time when they stepped in, 008 pressed the one button on the inside and the entire elevator spun 180 degrees and pointed them to another hallway.

"How did the elevator do that? Bond asked.

"The elevator car and the surrounding shaft, not to mention doors, can be disconnected from the wires after the elevator has been locked into place. Motors in the surrounding walls then spin the entire structure any number of degrees and the cables can be reattached."

That was new to Bond, but he did not question it. They continued forwards and soon they were in another room not unlike the last. The only difference was that this one was smaller and instead of being filled with cars, was filled with shelves upon shelves of gadgets, grenades, guns, knives, swords, and other things that Bond couldn't identify.

"Welcome to my 'personal Q-Branch,'" said 008. "This is just the room where I store those things that have been guaranteed to work, and then the adjacent room is the testing room. Let's see, then, where is he?"

"Who is 'he'?" Bond asked.

Suddenly a voice came from behind Bond. "'He' would be me."

Bond spun around, drawing his gun. There was nobody there. Suddenly, from above him, the voice said, "An admirable effort, Mr. Bond, but I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that to get me. Oh, and by the way, Alex seems to have taken a liking to you."

Bond looked down. There was a cat walking towards him. He looked up and saw a person who looked like he was Italian hanging from a pair of giant suction cups. He turned the handles and dropped to the ground nimbly with the suction cups in his hands. He then proceeded to put away the suction cups into the giant coat he was wearing and pulled out a laptop, which had been thoroughly beaten up and scratched. _It looks like it has been through a war,_ Bond thought to himself.

"This is Matteo, my 'personal Q-Branch.' Matteo is an innovator, and also a little crazy at times. Also, that is his cat, Alex," 008 said, as though he introduced these two every day.

"008, can I show you what I've been working on recently?" Matteo asked

"Certainly, Matteo. Please follow us, Mr. Bond."

They walked for a while and then came to a door. Walking through it, they came into a room twice as big as the hangar with the cars. Dominating the center of the room was a large robot, although it looked like it was something from the MechWarrior* series.

"How do you like it? It's called the Mad Cat, but I call it Alex."

"So you named it after your cat?" Bond asked.

"He likes his cat. You should see some of his other things he's built," 008 said to Bond. "How is it powered, Matteo?"

"It has a cold nuclear fusion reactor for movement and the lasers, and the helium byproduct is sent through a matter converter to transform it into hydrogen. It is then used to power the jump jets I have installed. It uses Stinger missiles and has two gauss rifles, and also has a bank of auto cannons, two to a side."

By this time, Bond was thoroughly lost, and couldn't make heads or tails of what they were saying.

"Sounds good. We might need it soon. I'll call you if we do," said 008.

"It uses the same control system as the patrol Mech I made, but the weapons systems are more advanced and a bit more complex. You should be able to figure it out, though."

"How long do you think it would take to get used to?"

"Oh, about 50 feet and 10 buildings."

"That's no good. Does it have a separate controller plug-in?"

"Yes. If you use that, you should get the hang of it almost immediately."

"That's better. Have you tested it?"

"Yes. There are only minor changes that need to be made, but I probably won't have time. Shouldn't affect the performance much though."

"That's good. Mr. Bond would appear to be confused, so let's go to something he can understand, shall we?"

"Oh, all right."

"Come on Mr. Bond, we need to get going to the armory again so we can discuss details of the mission and equip ourselves."

"What? Oh, yes," said Bond. They went into the armory, and sat down at a holographic projector that was displaying maps, information, faces, and other miscellaneous information.

"Now first we need to contact the American agent here in England. Her code name is White Knight. Unfortunately, she is nowhere near the best agent to have in another country, and in fact, blends in like a sore thumb. She is therefore relatively easy to find."

"Where will we meet her?" Bond asked.

"We won't need to find her. She will come to us."

London

Outside the Parliament Building

19:56:23

Bond and 008 were standing outside the Parliament Building in London, waiting for White Knight to contact them. Bond had grudgingly left his Aston Martin at 008's house, and they left in a relatively low-key car, specifically, an Audi A4. They did not have to wait very long, though.

"Ah, so nice to see you, Uncles," she said in a very bad imitation of a British accent. "How are y–"

"Shut up and get in the car with us," 008 said, "Your 'accent' is making everybody in the area look at us."

She looked at him pleadingly and, when he didn't budge, got in the car. Once in the car, she dropped the charade. "You know, 008, one day, I will get you for that."

"Yes, but you are the epitome of the worst in acting. Do you know how hard I pleaded for someone else to be our contact here in England? You could have blown everything before the mission even started, the way things were going. Moreover, what was with the 'Uncles' part? I'm _younger_ than you, for Pete's sake!"

"Yes, but at least I didn't reveal your identities."

"008 is right. You could have blown our cover the way you were going," Bond said. "Now what are the details?"

"All right, here they are. Your target is only known as 'informer' and has a very good network of protection around his base of operations in Italy. Rome, to be precise."

"Thanks for the information. We'll take it from here," 008 said. He stopped the car. "All right, get out. We'll call if we need help in Italy."

"What? I'm going with you!"

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am!"

"No, you are going to stay here in England, where the American Government has stationed you."

"Didn't you know? They told me to come with you and make sure you don't do anything too bad."

"Great, now we'll have to get extra plane tickets."

"008, can I ask you something?"

"What is it, Bond?"

"Do you have a _name_?"

"Yes. Didn't M tell you what it is?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, it's Steele. Jonathan Steele."

"And where are you from?"

"I don't think you need to know that right now. I might tell you later."

They drove on. About half an hour later, they were back at 008's house, equipping themselves to go to Italy.

White Knight was the one giving the mission summary. "Now remember that the objective is not to kill him, but to take him alive if at all possible. We need information. Also, we need this to be a covert operation. The longer we can keep the alarm from going off, the better. That means that you will have to use silencers and knives as much as possible. Also, keep in mind that we need to…"

"I hate having to take directions from somebody like this," 008 said to Bond in an undertone.

"I think I agree with you. She could have told us this on the way to the airport," Bond said.

"No, I meant because I could have figured all this out when we got there, and I think that you could have too. Still, though, she might prove useful," said 008, "if we need a distraction. All we need to do is put her on a megaphone and nobody would notice us."

"Will you two listen to me?" White Knight demanded.

"Sorry. I was just asking 008 if you have a name."

"Yes, I have a name. It's Brittney."

"Thank you. I didn't want to have to keep calling you White Knight."

"I figured that much, Commander Bond, but I would ask that you still call me that. After all, I do outrank you."

"Why is it everybody outranks me?" Bond inquired.

"I don't," offered 008.

It wasn't much consolation.

**1**Star Wars: The Force Unleashed® reference

**2**Battletech® Universe reference


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 2

Italy

Rome

07:35:26

"All right, so where's this contact of yours?" 008 questioned.

"I don't know. He was supposed to be here half an hour ago." Brittney said.

They were at a street café in Rome, waiting for White Knight's contact to come to them. They had agreed on the time and place, but he was late. Bond was starting to wonder if he had been intercepted.

"Is it possible that–" Bond started.

"No, Bond, he hasn't been captured. After all, he's the best agent we have." Brittney said, cutting him off.

"This contact of yours, he wouldn't happen to be Felix Leiter, would he?"

"Yes, he is. How do you know him?"

"I happen to have worked with him on a couple of missions."

"Ah. That would explain it. I see."

"There he is," said 008.

Felix Leiter was a tall, crisply dressed man in his early forties. He walked up to the table, sat down, and said, "Hello, 008, 007, and – Wait a minute. White Knight, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be back in England!"

"What? She wasn't supposed to come with us?" queried 008.

"No. Her assignment is to help the British secret service _in Britain_."

"I was bored. Can you blame me for that? Besides, it sounds like they've got quite a mission on their hands, and I think they'll need help. So can I _please_ come with them?"

"No. White Knight, I am _ordering_ you to return to England until another agent comes to replace you."

"Felix, I can't allow you to do that, because I've already worked out a plan that will work, but only if we have her with us. That, and we don't really have the luxury of time, here. He's only going to be here for one day. I can't change our entire plan in half a day," 008 interjected.

"You have a plan, and you need _her_? She's a klutz! She'll give you away before the operation starts!"

"Felix, you know that I have the highest respect for you, but that's _why_ I need her. Nobody will guess that she is with us, even if they identify Mr. Bond and myself as agents. That "klutz" there is the key to my entire plan."

"You're crazy. All right, I'm going to reassign White Knight to you for the remainder of the mission. After that, though," Leiter said, firmly, "she is going back to England to act as our liaison to the British."

"I promise you that after this mission, she'll be more valuable to you as an actual agent."

"Ha! I'd like to see that happen. She won't surpass the worst agent we've got in a hundred years!"

"Just remember. When we are done, she will be at almost your level, if not equal to you," 008 said, with the most serious look Bond had ever seen.

"Right. Well, good luck to you, and you'd better fill that promise of yours," Leiter said, standing up.

"So _why_ do you need me?" White Knight asked after Leiter had left the room.

"You're the one who's going to capture this 'informer' guy."

"What?!"

Italy

A Large Street in Rome

15:19:06

"So what are we going to do while she's doing that?" Bond asked 008.

They were waiting outside of "Informer's" house, waiting for White Knight to finish up the capturing phase of her mission. It had been two hours already since the beginning of the operation, and Bond was getting tired of waiting.

"We are going to continue watching until she gets done. When she is done, she is going to get in his car with him, and using the heavily tinted windows as a means of doing so without being noticed, overtake him and drive his car to the rendezvous point. We will follow her in our own car, just in case things turn messy. Then, at the rendezvous point, we will question him, and then dispose of the evidence."

"What do you mean, dispose of the evidence?"

"We are going to make him forget that any of this ever happened. He will then go on his way, not knowing all that he told us."

"How will we do that?"

"Here she comes. Get ready to follow her."

White Knight got in the car with "informer" and closed the door. Then, about thirty seconds later, the car started up and began to drive away. Bond followed, and they reached the rendezvous point without any difficulty. Getting out of the car, Bond saw that White Knight had gagged him, and tied his hands and feet.

"Good idea. Keeps him out of trouble."

008 stepped around the car, pulled out his gun, pointed it at "informer's" head, and said, "You will answer all our questions without any delay, and without trying to mislead us, or I will shoot you. Nod once if you understand me."

He nodded his head. "_This man has no choice but to obey what 008 has said to him now. He will have to tell us all that he knows_," Bond thought to himself.

"White Knight, remove the gag."

She did so, and the man immediately said, "I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just, please, don't kill my family!"

"First of all, what is your name?" 008 asked. "_This man must think that we are from some other organization. Best to play him for all he's worth_," 008 thought.

"My name is Gregorovitch, but I was born here in Italy. That's why no one suspects me of being an agent for Quantum."

"Quantum? What's that?"

"They are an organization born from the ashes of Spectre. Former Spectre agents banded together under a new leader some 15 years ago, more ruthless than our last."

"Well, that explains a lot. What do you know of their next move?"

"The next extortion of a government will be in Japan. The reason that we haven't been noticed until now is because we have been using more elaborate means of blackmailing, and our demands are smaller, though more numerous. We also use different names each time we extort."

"Where is the contact and how can we reach him?"

He is in Japan, and he is scheduled to receive the money in three days' time. I don't know how to reach him, but it will not be easy. All I know is the city."

"What is it?" 008 asked, pushing the barrel of the gun into the man's head a little harder.

"It is in Okinawa."

"Thank you," 008 said, withdrawing the gun. "Before we let you go, we'll–"

"What? We're letting him go?" White Knight asked.

"Yes. This man is important to Quantum. If we kill him, it will alert them to our knowledge of their operation."

"So how are we going to keep him from talking?"

"Using a little device from Matteo. Matteo, would you please step out here?"

Suddenly Matteo walked out of what seemed like thin air. He pulled out a small metal object from his coat, saying, "Greetings, fleshlings, and master 008. This is a small version of my mind-wiping device. It's only good for erasing one half of an hour from a person's brain, but it is effective nonetheless."

Turning to Bond, White Knight whispered, "Where'd he come from? It looked like he walked out of thin air."

"That would be because of my cloaking device and teleporter," Matteo said, "By using them in conjunction with each other, it is possible to create the illusion of walking out of thin air."

"Anyways," 008 interrupted, "we need to get on with it. Our half-hour is almost up. White Knight, get into his car, where you were in the beginning, _before_ you took over. Bond, untie him and put him in his seat. Matteo, you know what to do. Bond and I will then follow discreetly until he drops you off and then pick up White Knight."

"What about Matteo?" White Knight asked.

"Matteo will go back the way he came here."

"Oh. I didn't think of that."

"Very well. Proceed with the operation, Matteo."

The entire operation went smoothly and everything went on. Gregorovitch dropped White Knight at the appointed location, and left to go back to his house. Matteo went back to 008's mansion, and the rest of the party went back to report to Leiter.

Italy

Rome

Leiter's Base of Operations

16:13:06

"Wait, what? Spectre was disbanded 20 years ago by Bond here. So you're saying that they've been back in business for 15 years now as Quantum? This has to be the worst international crisis _since_ Spectre."

"I know. I found it hard to believe, but we only have this man's word for anything right now. He could be lying, for all we know."

"And then you let him just go free," Leiter accused.

Bond grimaced. 008 had forbidden them both from telling anyone about Matteo or any of his inventions.

"We made him swear on pain of death that he wouldn't tell anyone. And in case you hadn't noticed, everyone else I've questioned has followed my instructions without any trouble for an entire year now."

"Yeah, well I didn't expect much better from such a young agent anyways. I honestly have to question the British's sense of–"

"It's not your business to question any of my plans, or the British Secret Service's judgment. If you do, I'll have the CIA reassign you somewhere else."

Bond had to admit, even coming from a teenager, the threat sounded all too real. _The boy's got connections_. "Anyways, he said that the next transfer is in three days' time in Japan, so we might as well go there and get situated," Bond suggested.

"Yeah. I've got an agent in Japan right now, in Okinawa. Code name is Kita Chōsen*. He knows the place pretty well, and he can follow you around when you're done in Japan."

"Thanks. We get to buy more plane tickets," 008 said sarcastically.

Japan

Okinawa

08:18:54

008, Bond, and White Knight were in a traditional Japanese taxi, headed to the place where they were supposed to meet Kita Chōsen. The driver stopped, and 008 got out and said, "Dōmo arigatō."* The taxi driver then got out their luggage and went on his way.

"Well, it would appear we have to walk the rest of the way," said Bond.

"It could be worse. C'mon, let's go."

"I can't read anything here. Or understand anything," White Knight complained.

"Well, you should learn the language, then, shouldn't you, _gaijin_*?" 008 prodded.

Bond laughed. He was going to have fun watching 008 and White Knight go at it until they met up with Kita Chōsen. They walked on until they reached a run-down building on the right side of the street with a sign that said, "Okinawa wo ryokō shimasu."* They walked inside and saw a small Asian man sitting in a chair behind a desk.

"Kita Chōsen wa doko desu ka," 008 asked the man.

"Kita Chōsen desu," replied the man, standing up. "But while you're here, please call me Mike."

"Finally, something I can understand," White Knight said, relieved.

"Oh, Brittney, I didn't see you there. Please, all of you, follow me."

They walked up a flight of stairs and into a small parlor on the second floor. Mike pressed a button and all the shelves on the wall turned and revealed a very sophisticated array of weapons, gadgets, and computers.

"Welcome to my base of operations," Mike said.

"White Knight, did you know that this existed?" Bond asked casually, noting her surprised expression.

"Has she told you to only refer to her as White Knight?" Mike asked.

"Yes, she has."

"Well, I supersede that order, and you can call her Brittney all you want."

"What?! I demand that you recall that order!"

"I'm sorry, but I am your superior."

At that moment, a monitor suddenly came up flashing a warning icon. Mike walked over to it and said, "He's on the move. Your man, that is. We've been watching him for quite some time now. I'll bring it up on the main screen."

He pressed a button, and a high resolution image showed up on the projector screen of the Quantum member getting into his car. He then drove off, and the camera view switched to the angle from the front bumper of the car.

"Had quite a time of getting that camera in place without him noticing. We had to stick it just below the license plate holder. You should thank us, because now we know where he's going."

"Did you get a microphone in the cab, too?" 008 queried.

"No, we figured that might be a little too much, so we stuck with just the camera. Besides, if we had put a mic in, the radio would be screwed up by its signal."

Bond thought a moment, and then asked, "Would you be able to give us a satellite view of all the places he's gone in this car in the last month?"

"Yeah, sure. I can tell you how long he's spent at each of the places too."

"That would be nice."

An inset appeared on the screen, with red dots at all the locations he had visited, the amount of time he had spent there, and how many times he had visited in the past month. One area piqued Bond's interest. "Can we look at that location?"

"Certainly. That," he said, bringing it up, "is the house of Sato Guren-san. He is the Japanese Head of Treasu– oh. K'so*!"

"We need to stop him, now!" 008 yelled. "There's no time for a plan, we'll just wing it!"

**Kita Chōsen**: North Korean

**Dōmo arigatō**: Thank you

**Gaijin**: Foreigner

**Okinawa wo ryokō shimasu**: Tour Okinawa

**Kita Chōsen wa doko desu ka**: Where is the North Korean

**Kita Chōsen desu**: I am the North Korean

**K'so**: Shit


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 3

Japan

Okinawa

08:27:24

"There's no time for a plan, we'll just wing it!" 008 yelled.

There was chaos.

"Get the car!"

"There is no car!"

"What the–"

"Come on! Grab any weapon you think we'll need!"

"Hey, wait! We don't even know where he's going!"

"Everybody, _calm DOWN_!"

Suddenly, everyone shut up. Brittney turned to everyone, livid, and said, "We don't even know where he's going and you just want to jump him somehow?! For all we know, he's going to the grocery store!"

"Thank you, Brittney," Mike said. "We just need to visit the house of Sato-san and talk to him. Then we can go visit this Quantum spy."

"That sounds like a good plan."

"I told Leiter I'd make a decent spy out of her, and look what happens. Now she's better than me in some situations," 008 muttered to himself.

"008, shut up and listen. We need to think of how we can visit Sato-san without arousing suspicion," Brittney said.

"Well, my face is too well known around here, since it's where I'm stationed, and Bond is just too well known in general. That leaves Brittney and 008."

"We can't be sure whether or not the mi—I mean whether or not the last Quantum agent we spoke with talked, so it would be unsafe to send Brittney," Bond suggested.

"I guess that leaves me," stated 008 blandly.

Japan

An Alley in Okinawa

09:03:16

"Now you remember what the plan is, right?" Mike asked 008 for the fifth time.

"Yes," 008 responded, "Now can I please get on with this? Every second wasted standing out here is a second less we have to speak with Sato-san."

"Good. I'll be waiting for you at the rendezvous point, then."

008 headed across the street, looking for the entire world like a tourist. He had a camera, backpack, and jacket. What people couldn't see, however, was the pinhole camera, button microphone, and silenced pistol, just in case. He entered the house, passed by the guards, and when one of the guards stopped and questioned him, he got out a pocket dictionary, as though to say, "I don't speak Japanese." What he was really showing the guard was a note that said in Japanese that Sato-san was expecting him. The guards left him alone after that point, figuring that he had important business to conduct with Sato-san.

He then walked up to a very ornate door, knocked four times, and waited for an answer. He didn't have to wait long.

"Dōzo ohairi kudasai*," said a voice on the other side of the door.

008 entered, and said, "Hajimemashite. Dōzo yoroshiku.* I am Jonathan Steele, here with Universal Exports." He handed him a business card while he said this.

"Ah, Mr. Steele, how nice to meet you. I have done business with your company before, and I would gladly do so again. Please sit down."

"I'm afraid that my meeting today has to be short, Mr. Sato, and off the record."

"I understand why it might need to be short, but off the record?"

"Must I explain everything? Just, please, turn off any microphones and cameras in the office."

"All right…" He flicked a switch on his desk. "We are now cut off of the rest of the world, save for my alarm."

"Very good. I will not have you disable that, of course. Now," 008 said, calmly, standing up, "I want you to tell me what you know about this man." He pulled out a photo of the contact.

"I've never met him before."

"Well, I can tell you that he's been a thorn in our side for a couple of years, and we were just trying to get a lead on him, to try and see if we can offer him a job with us, instead of our competitors."

"Well, I'm sorry that I can't be of more help," Sato-san said, but looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly between his eyes.

"Now why don't you tell me how much money he's trying to extort from you, first. I know that he has seen you at least five times in the last two months."

"All right, you've got me. He's trying to get five hundred million yen for his organization. But I have a question before I answer any others. If you're pointing a gun at me, then just which secret service are you working for?"

"Australian Intelligence. Now my other question is _when_," 008 said urgently, "the exchange was scheduled to be."

"Tomorrow morning at 10:00. Here in my office. The cameras and microphones were supposed to be off, just like they are right now."

"Very good. Now I just need to do something very quickly, and I'll be off."

Sato closed his eyes. 008 rummaged around in his backpack for a moment, still pointing his gun at Sato.

"Just don't make a mess, please."

"You won't feel a thing." 008 pulled out the mind wiping device and placed it near Sato's forehead. Activating the device, he put away his gun. When he had put everything back in place, he removed the device from Sato's forehead, put Sato back in his chair, flicked the cameras and microphone back on, and sat back down.

"So, like I was saying," Sato said, calmly, as though the ordeal hadn't even happened, "I really can't help you. Sorry."

"Well, that's all right, I guess I'll just have to go elsewhere for that information. Thank you for your time."

008 left the room. Everything had gone according to plan. _Easy as cake_. Then all went to chaos as all hell broke loose.

The first thing that happened was that the alarm went off. All the guards immediately drew their guns and started looking for a threat. Then Sato came on the intercom and said, "Gaijin wa taiho shite*!" All the guards immediately zeroed in on 008.

"Shit." 008 drew his gun, as well as a kodachi that he had been hiding in his pack. He started firing at the guards as he ran for the nearest exit.

The guards immediately answered with firing from their rifles, forcing 008 behind a pillar. He unscrewed the silencer and inserted some plastic explosives. Then he stuck a small detonator into it and rolled it out towards the guards. As soon as it reached the center of the closing semicircle, he detonated his makeshift frag grenade. The result was spectacular. The silencer blasted into a million tiny pieces and left a crater in the floor as well as wounding several of the guards seriously. The others were in no shape for pursuit, and 008 left.

Outside, he went around to the circuit breakers and turned them all off. Then he went back inside through the back door and went into the security room. The guard that had been in there had gone outside to investigate. 008 plastered all of the recording system with plastic explosive, and stuck a detonator in each glob. Once outside the building again, he blew the explosives.

"Whoops, no security footage for them," 008 said sarcastically. "They'll have a hard time proving anything happened except for the scars."

Inside, however, 008 was furious with himself. He should have been more careful. Even the slightest bit of relaxation on his part could cause disaster for the entire mission.

Japan

Okinawa

09:31:23

008 stormed back into the hideout only to find that they were all looking at the big screen watching the contact go to the Treasurer's house.

"Well, it was going fine until the end, but I don't think that the contact is going to want to meet there anymore. It's…it's a mess," 008 said.

"What do you mean? The man's alarms went off for a bit and the guards got blown to pieces practically. We were called by the Australian Embassy asking us what we had to do with it because they did nothing. Apparently, one of their agents, Jonathan Steele went in there masquerading as some sort of legitimate businessman and then whips out a gun and points it at the Treasurer's head. So he panicked and hit the alarm. Oh, yeah. The security room got blown to bits, too. Did you see the Australian?" Mike asked.

"Um, yeah, about that," 008 said, trying to avoid the amazed/disappointed looks from Bond and Brittney, "I said that I was Australian Intelligence when he asked me. He wasn't giving any info, so I pulled my gun and made him answer."

"You shot him?! How did he call the Australians?" Brittney asked bewilderedly.

"No, _aho_*, I gave him a massage. I thought that the mind wipe took hold!"

"Mind wipe?" Mike queried.

"Shit. Another one in on the secret."

"What do you mean, mind wipe? Wait, wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Good."

"So how does it work?"

"Aaargh," 008 said in surrender. "All right, I'll tell you, but you have to promise to tell nobody, and I mean _nobody_, what I am about to tell you."

"I'm as good as silent."

"Good." 008 proceeded to tell Mike about Matteo and his inventions.

"Wow," Mike said when 008 was done explaining. "So he lives at your house?"

"Yes. Anyways, when I was done beating the guards to a pulp, I went back around into the security room and blew the recording equipment."

"You beat the guards to a pulp?" exclaimed Brittney. "Like, with your bare fists?"

"Figuratively, Brittney, figuratively," 008 said, holding his forehead with his hands.

Bond was amazed that the wipe didn't take. "Are you sure you held it on to his head long enough?"

"Yes," 008 replied, "I think it was because I didn't erase _enough_ of his memory. I didn't erase the part when I asked him if he knew the man we're tailing."

"Oh. Well, in any case, we have to catch that Quantum agent before he makes the exchange."

"No, we'll have to put a tracer in the money that he gets. That way we can at least find out where he's going."

"Good idea. I'll go get a tracer ready," Mike said.

Japan

Okinawa

21:56:52

008, 007, White Knight, and Kita Chōsen (Steele, Bond, Brittney, and Mike) were all ready to put a radioactive tracer on all the money in the Japanese Head of Treasury's safe, which was where he was likely to have all the money for the trade.

"So here's the plan _one last time_. Brittney will go in and hack the security system to run a loop after dispatching the guard. They switch in less than four minutes. Once she has done that, she will signal us on our radios with three quick bursts. Bond, Mike and I will then come in with the tracer and break into his vault. We will spray the money and then leave as quietly as we came. Understood?"

"Uhh, guys, I don't think I should be in on this operation," Mike said.

"Why not?"

"I just have this really bad streak of luck going for me, and–"

"Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

"Famous last words," Bond muttered to himself.

Four minutes passed quietly. Then, Brittney went up to the security room and dispatched the guard there. About two minutes later, she sent the signal. Bond, 008, and Mike then proceeded into the house very quietly as a group.

When they reached the main chamber, Bond saw the damage to the floor and columns and said, "Wow. Collateral damage is an understatement here. What did you use?"

"My silencer packed with some plastic explosives.'

Being careful not to fall into the crater left by 008's escapade earlier that day, the three continued on to the vault. 008 walked up and started by placing his ear against the door.

"Unless this is soundproofed, there's no one on the other side. Let's crack this thing."

He then proceeded to the keypad, taking out a tool (I think Matteo made it, but it's hard to tell. After all, he made it look like anything that would come out of Q-Branch. Funny, being the author and not even knowing who made it). He placed it into the slot, and pressed a friendly looking green button. It made some whirring noises for a few moments, and then quietly beeped twice. 008 then pressed the red button and pulled it out. After he had finished this, the code was readily displayed on the LCD screen. 008 hit "Enter" and the door quietly swung open on balanced and oiled hinges.

Inside the vault it was quiet as the grave. Going to strategic points along the interior, they placed radiation mines throughout the entire collection of money, so that they would be able to get the tracer on all of it. Once they finished, they closed the vault door and began to leave with Brittney, when suddenly, four armed guards appeared from behind the columns in front of the entrance.

"Tomare!*" one of the guards shouted. Then, to the others, "Buki o sagatte*."

"I told you I had bad luck."

"Shizumette*!"

The guards were quick and efficient except with Brittney, since she was…well, you know, and they were…you get the picture. The search turned up no weapons, but they did find the decoder. They showed it to their leader, and he inspected it. Then he said in very broken English, "You were tried to breaking into vault?"

"Well, that depends on what you determine to count as breaking into the vault. If breaking into the vault includes stealing money, then no, we didn't. Otherwise, yes."

"If you no have money, then you is free too going."

"Arigato."

They proceeded to leave. Once they couldn't see the building anymore, they ran straight to the hideout.

**Dōzo ohairi kudasai**: Come in!

**Hajimemashite. Dōzo yoroshiku**: Pleased to meet you.

**Gaijin wa taiho shite**: Arrest the foreigner

**Aho**: Idiot (depending on area in Japan, is a worse insult than _Baka_)

**Tomare**: Stop

**Buki o sagatte**: Search for weapons

**Shizumette**: Quiet


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 4

Japan

Okinawa

13:16:19

It had been three days now since the exchange. They had followed the money so far to Russia, where it was split up and taken to Austria, Italy, and America.

"Well, I vote that we go to Russia first and figure out what to do from there," said Bond.

"We don't have any agents in Russia, though," complained Mike.

"What? Do you want to make this operation dominated by American agents? If we add any more of you, we'll be lost because you guys will have the majority vote all the time. Besides, I've got a contact in Russia," 008 offered.

"Who?" Brittney interrogated.

"Her code name is Athanasia. She was formerly one of the best in the KGB, but now she acts as a sort of freelancer."

"Freelancer? You mean like a mercenary?" Mike asked.

"Well, kind of, but she's pickier about who she helps. She only helps people that she believes will willingly…"

"Willingly what?" Brittney asked.

"Do her," 008 finished. "For lack of a better term."

"So you've–" Brittney began saying.

"_NO!_ I have _not_ done her! I just happen to know her through some contacts of mine."

"So how are we going to have her help us?" Bond inquired.

"You're going to ask her," 008 said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Oh."

Russia

Moscow

08:19:54

Athanasia was on her way to work when her cell phone began to vibrate. She picked it up, and the first thing she heard when she answered was, "Hello, my name is Bond. James Bond. We would like your help."

As soon as she heard Bond's name, her attention was all on the conversation. "What kind of help?"

"We would like you to help us take down an organization called Quantum. We are willing to–"

"Before you continue, who is 'we'?"

"That would be myself, 008 of the British Secret Service, and White Knight and Kita Chōsen of the American CIA."

"Oh. A group activity. Sorry, but I'll–"

Now it was Bond's turn to interrupt. "Oh, don't worry, we know all about your criteria. We'll meet them if you agree to help us. All we need you to do is give us a place to meet you and then we'll set up there while we wait for you to get back from work."

"Don't bother waiting. I'll call in and wait for you. Meet me at the address I am about to give you…"

Russia

The Specified Address

16:12:34

When 008, Bond, Brittney, and Michael walked into Athanasia's "office," they were flabbergasted. Everything about it pointed to, "I want to get screwed by _you_." 008 immediately regretted letting her choose the place for the meeting, but due to his inexperience in Moscow, and his still weak trust of Bond, he let her choose. _Why, oh WHY, did I let her choose the place?_

"What do you think of my hideout?" Athanasia asked innocently.

Brittney made a motion as though throwing up on the floor, Bond looked at it with bated interest, and Michael was still getting over the initial shock.

"It's…interesting," said 008.

Brittney then proceeded to walk up to Athanasia and slap her.

"What was that for?"

"Why…didn't…you…ever…_call_. You. SLUT."

"I don't know whether I should be apologizing or offended."

"Brittney, you know her?" Bond asked.

"Know her? She was an exchange student at my high school some ten years ago."

"Oh. Well, that explains that."

008 then proceeded to the point. "We have tracked some money from Japan to here, and we wanted your help, since you know the area so well. After we have accomplished the mission, you will be paid in full, through whatever medium you prefer."

"Whatever medium I prefer?"

"Yes. You name it, we'll pay it."

"Well, then," she said, looking around. She settled her eyes on 008. "You. Me. Sex."

008 was unnerved. "Uh…that's…that's not a medium of payment. When I said medium of payment, I meant money."

"No money."

"Well, I'm sure we can work something else out," 008 offered.

Brittney proceeded to slap Athanasia. "We will decide on a method of payment after you have helped us that does not involve sex, or I will kill you on the spot." She punctuated this last phrase by pulling out her gun and cocking it.

"Thank you, Brittney, for settling that matter. I need to go outside for…a breath of fresh air," 008 said.

"I think he was disturbed by that," Michael whispered to Bond.

"Really?" Bond asked sarcastically.

008 stepped outside of the building and thought about what had just happened. _She couldn't have been serious, could she have? I mean, I thought she would have pointed at Bond. This is highly irregular. I just don't…I don't know what to do. Kira, what should I do?_

008 walked back into the building, and said, "I think we've gotten to know each other well enough for now. So, getting on to the plan, we need to figure out where the money went in Moscow to find their headquarters here in Russia. We have the GPS coordinates of the place where the money was taken, but we don't know where in Moscow that is, because we didn't have a map. Athanasia, we need your help finding this building, and then we would like if you not accompany us further."

"Okay, but that means you have to pay me before you leave."

"Never mind. You will stay with us for the remainder of the mission."

"Fine. What are the coordinates?"

Mike then proceeded to take out the piece of paper with the coordinates. "Here they are," he said, handing it to Athanasia.

"Ah. I don't know where this is off the top of my head. Let me consult my map."

She left the room for a few minutes. When she came back, she seemed confused. "I had to look back about thirty years to find the building on a map, because it was supposed to have been destroyed, and I thought that it didn't exist anymore. Anyways, I found the location, and the name. What do you want to do from here?"

Everyone looked to 008. "Why are you all looking at me? I'm not the only leader of this operation! In case you all forgot, Bond is also a leader. _I am not omniscient_. Remember that even though I have had most of the good ideas so far, I am still a teenager."

"Yes, but even though you're a teenager, you're a double-oh. The best of the best. The cream of the crop. You are an exceptional agent," Bond reminded him.

"He's a teenager?" Mike and Athanasia both asked in surprise.

"You didn't know?"

They shook their heads in unison.

"Oh. Well, I should have told you. By the way, since it is kind of weird to continually refer to you as Athanasia, what is your name?" Bond asked.

"Oh, how rude of me. My name is Jennifer, but you can call me Anastasia."

"How about Jenni? It's much simpler."

"Have it your way."

"Can we please get back to planning?" 008 asked.

"Yes. I think that just knowing the location of their base is enough information for now, and that we can move on," Bond suggested.

"But shouldn't we try to get some of the money back?" Brittney asked. "Then we can pay this whore what she wants to get rid of her."

"You don't like me, do you?"

"Not since you left and never called."

"Well, if you keep calling me a whore or slut, then I will sabotage your mission from within."

"Thank you for telling us that so we know when to kill you so as not to sabotage our mission," Mike said.

"Oh. Did I say that aloud?" Jenni asked.

"Yes, you did. Now let's stop bickering and get back to work, then, shall we?" 008 offered.

"Mike, what's the Japanese word for whore?" Brittney whispered.

"Baishunfu," Mike responded.

"Ha-ha. Now I've got you, baishunfu."

"Like I said, _let's get back to planning_. Now, we are not going to get any of the money back, much as we would like to, because that will alert Quantum to our knowledge of their operations here in Moscow."

Suddenly, someone started banging on the door to the building. They were yelling something in Russian, and Jenni went to see what it was. Since Bond was the only other one in the group who understood Russian, he translated, "We know you're in there. Come out, and we may not shoot you. Come out, you spies."

"Now they should know better. We are not spies, we are espionage agents," Mike joked.

"Jenni, get back up here! _Do not open the door!_" 008 yelled. "We need to get out of here." Pulling a small radio out of his pocket, he keyed it on and said, "Matteo, please cause a disturbance."

"Yes, sir," came the reply.

"Now we go to the window and watch the action evolve."

They had just gotten to the windows when suddenly, Darth Vader walked out of a side street, lightsaber ignited. He strode up to the Russians trying to break down the door and started saying in perfect Russian, "You have failed me for the last time. Prepare to meet your fate."

The militia then started pulling out their guns and shooting Vader. All Darth Vader did was start slicing their guns in half, not killing anyone. The men soon left, devoid of any means of killing Darth Vader.

"What was that?" Jenni asked when the whole spectacle was over.

"I dunno, some guy in a Darth Vader costume?" 008 commented.

Suddenly, Darth Vader walked into the room and said in English, "My job here is done. I will go now."

As soon as he had said this, he vanished from sight.

"That wasn't some guy in a costume. That had to have been Darth Vader himself!" Brittney punctuated this by pointing at where Darth Vader had stood just a moment before.

008 turned to Bond and said quietly, "Let's let them make up their own fantasies, shall we?"

"A good idea, I'd say. After all the less people that know about PROXY, the less people know about Matteo."

"Yes, well, I'm failing at keeping Matteo a secret, aren't I?"

Meanwhile, the argument about just who showed up continued, and 008 decided to join in just to confuse things further. Thinking such things as being childish and unnecessary, Bond joined in.

When that had wrapped up, they decided to call it a day and start up again the next day.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 5

Russia

Moscow

The Next Day (In case you hadn't figured that out from the end of Chapter 4)

09:31:31

008 woke up to smell pancakes and eggs cooking below. When he got downstairs, he found that he was the last one up, save Jenni. Mike was slaving over the oven getting breakfast ready, and Brittney was helping him.

"What's up?" 008 asked.

"Well, you, finally, and not Jenni. I just thought that after yesterday's excitement, we needed a nice big breakfast," Mike replied.

"Oh. Well, that's nice. Where'd the ovens and stuff come from?" 008 inquired, remembering that the day before, the entire room had been dominated by a bed.

"Oh, we found that little radio of yours and keyed Matteo up. We said we needed supplies and equipment to make breakfast with, and he brought these up and hooked us into the gas lines. Oh, yeah, he also took the bed and said he would incinerate the abomination. He had the most peculiar man with him. He was tall and talked about politics in America like no other. Said his name was Phil something-or-other. Anyways, they took the bed back with them with the intention of burning it," said Brittney, "Oh, here's your little radio."

"Thanks. Well, on to breakfast, then."

"_WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BED?!! And what did you bring in_?" came Jenni's voice from the doorway.

"We just explained that to 008, we don't want to explain it again," Bond said.

"Well?" Jenni asked, wanting an answer.

"Well, we needed to fix breakfast somehow, and I just got up, so I don't know how they did it so fast, but your bed has been incinerated by now and they brought in some ovens and started to fix breakfast. Smells good, doesn't it?" 008 summarized.

"I want my bed back."

"I'm afraid that's impossible if it's been incinerated. Would you settle for a different one when we get done?"

"NO! I want my old one back! It holds dear memories for me."

"So did my first car, but nothing I say is going to get it back for me, and you don't see me whining," commented Bond.

"What was your first car?" 008 asked.

"An Aston Martin, I think."

"What do you mean, 'I think'?"

"When I first got it, all the logos of whatever carmaker it was had been torn off in some accident or another. Same with the model, and the serial number had fallen off some years before I got it. For all I know, it could have been a Ferrari and I wouldn't have known the difference."

"Oh. Do you have pictures?"

"Yes, but so many body panels had been replaced that it wasn't the original shape anymore. Headlights and taillights, too. Not one was the same. It was a pain replacing them when they burned out."

"My first car was a Ford Pinto," Mike said.

Everyone stared at Mike for a few minutes and then got back to work.

Later, after everyone was well fed, thanks to Mike's wonderful cooking, they started to discuss plans for what to do about the Quantum base they had discovered. After a while, it was decided to just know where it was and then get on with the mission.

"So that leaves the question of where we're going first. After all, the money went to America and Austria, as well as some going back to Japan," Brittney concluded.

"And Italy. Don't forget Italy," Mike reminded her.

"Well, we've already been to Italy once, and we're pretty sure of who the contact is there," Bond stated.

"Let's go to Austria, then," 008 said.

"It's settled, then. We'll go to Austria, then the United States," Bond declared.

"When did we decide to go to the United States second?" Jenni asked.

"Because it is the only other place we haven't been to."

"Oh. I hadn't thought about that."

"Of course you wouldn't, _baishunfu_, all you think about is sex," Brittney said before slapping her.

"Why do you keep slapping me?"

"Because you're a baishunfu, baishunfu."

"008, what does baishunfu mean?" Bond asked quietly.

"It means whore. I think I'll teach her the Italian, too. It's quite entertaining."

Austria

Vienna

15:32:48

Will looked up at the sky and thought that it was just another day, with nothing new happening. That's when the phone rang.

He walked over to the phone and picked it up, saying, "Ja, Herr Mahoney… oh… ja. Das ist gut. Ja. Ja*."

He walked downstairs and got ready to invite in some guests. He loved visits, but this visit he was not going to like. After all, it's hard to like an agent barely out of secondary school who's already in a position higher than your own. After all, he didn't like the prospect of taking orders from a kid like 008.

"Herr Mahoney, wo bist du*?" came the voice of a woman.

"Mir ist im das Forum, meine Liebhaberin*."

Heidi, a dauntingly beautiful woman entered the room, kissed him, and said in heavily accented English, "What is wrong, my lover?"

"008 is coming, that's what's wrong. Please, prepare some food for when he arrives."

"Of course."

The thing he liked most about her was that she didn't ask unnecessary questions. She kept his work separated from their relationship. Having been a Navy Seal before joining the British Secret Service, he knew all about combat, and was assigned the number 014 when he joined thanks to his formidable skills. The only reason he was able to do both was because he was born in America while his parents were on vacation. Being a dual citizen by birth was a great advantage.

About half an hour later, a knock came at the door.

"Ja?"

"Wie gehts, Herr Mahoney*?" came Bond's voice from the doorway.

"Ja," Will said while getting up to answer the door, "Or at least, now I am. 008 didn't tell me that you were on this assignment too."

"As well as a few others. I hope you don't mind our intruding for a little while."

"Not really. Who else do you have?"

"Well, there's me," 008 said, entering. Will scowled at 008. "What, still sour? I told you, I've tried appealing to M's heart, but he won't put you in with the rest of the double-oh's for about six months longer at least. Well, we also have Kita Chōsen, of the CIA, who prefers to be called Mike, White Knight, who we call Brittney –"

"Against my will," interjected Brittney.

"–and Athanasia, a freelance Russian agent whose name is Jenni."

"Yes, well that's three more people than I expected to see here. We'll have to prepare more rooms, then. Heidi, please get three rooms ready for our guests," Will said. "So, what's the deal with all the people?"

"Well, it started out with just James and I, and we were going to just meet different contact agents in whatever countries we went to, but then Brittney tricked us into having her come with us. When we arrived in Italy, Felix Leiter was going to send her home, but she guilt-tripped him into letting her go on with us, and we've been picking up agents ever since, because Leiter said any American agent that helps us is to accompany us until the end of the mission."

"That doesn't explain her," Will said, pointing at Jenni.

"Jenni is a freelance Russian agent that we needed for help, and we were going to ditch her while still in Russia, but we need to work out a better payment plan first."

"What do you mean?"

"The _Hure_* here wants to have sex with 008 as her 'payment'," Brittney said bluntly.

"Ah. That is a very interesting form of payment, isn't it?"

"Yes. Very," 008 said.

"Well, what do you need me for?"

"We need your help infiltrating Quantum."

Austria

Vienna

18:49:37

After having dinner, they pored over a map of Vienna to find the Quantum money cache, or at least get an idea of where it was. The problem was that it was in a bank, and they couldn't touch it if they tried.

"There's only one way to solve this. We'll have to break into the bank," Brittney finally concluded.

"No, _Dummkopf_*, that will alert Quantum to our activities," Will said in return.

"Brittney, I think it would be best if you stayed quiet for this stage of the planning, or else you will end up becoming a terrorist," Jenni said.

"Better terrorist than extortionist," Brittney countered.

"Ladies, please, would both of you shut up and get back to the planning?" Bond asked, exasperated, as Jenni was about to counter the last statement.

"We need to find out where their base of operations here in Vienna is, not where they keep their money. There should be small amounts of that money that their members here in Vienna keep on them. Therefore, we should look in to those places first," 008 said.

"Let me pull that up on the scanner," said Mike.

While he did that, Will pulled out a transparent plastic sheet with coordinate markings on it. He then marked in red where they were when Mike listed the places they were at. Coupled with this and the latest satellite images of Vienna, they were able to find out where the Quantum members lived.

"You know, it's a good thing there are only two members of Quantum in Vienna, or else this would be really hard," Mike commented when they were done.

"Don't relax yet, Mike. Those two houses are the most well guarded houses in all of Austria," Will said.

**Ja, Herr Mahoney… oh… ja. Das ist gut. Ja. Ja**: Yes, Mr. Mahoney… oh… yes. That's good. Yes. Yes.

**Herr Mahoney, wo bist du**: Mr. Mahoney, where are you?

**Mir ist im das Forum, meine Liebhaberin**: I am in the forum, my lover.

Wie gehts, Herr Mahoney: Mr. Mahoney, how are you? (lit. you are well?)

Hure: Whore

**Dummkopf**: Idiot (lit. dumb head)


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 6

Austria

Vienna

05:14:53

Bond, 008, and Will were sitting outside one of the Quantum member's houses doing stakeout. Mike was stuck with Brittney and Jenni at the other house, doing the same, or at least 008 hoped. They had been sitting there for about an hour taking pictures and notes about the security.

"The more we find out about the security, the more futile it seems getting in and out without being noticed," Will said.

"Well, it seems that it's time I told you part of why I have done so well," 008 said, and proceeded to tell Will about Matteo.

"Oh. No wonder you've done as well as you have." Will thought for a moment. "How long have you known Matteo?"

"Oh, he's been around since before I was born. My grandfather met him at first, traveled a bit with him, and then eventually rescued him from a falling wall. After that, Matteo swore a 'life debt' to my grandfather and has served my family ever since. I don't bother thinking of the logistics of how old he may be, because he's the exact same as when my grandfather met him."

"You mean he doesn't look any different? Not even one more gray hair?"

"Well, it would be easy to spot any gray hairs, because his hair is black, and he doesn't use any re-coloring products whatsoever."

"Amazing. When I meet him, I must learn his secret to not getting gray hair."

"Well, the point I was trying to make was that it would be relatively easy to get past all their security with the help of Matteo."

"Yes, but will any of his devices stop pressure sensors?" Bond asked.

"That I don't know about. Shall we ask him?"

"Of course."

"Well, yes, I've been building devices to get around pressure sensors without setting them off ever since I invented the pressure sensor in 1709. It was much simpler back then, following a design that I found in the ruins of an ancient Indian temple that I was exploring in 1692," Matteo said.

"Okay, I knew you were pretty old, but _that_ old?" 008 asked dubitably.

"Of course not, but after hearing the rest of the conversation, I couldn't resist, my dear fleshlings."

"Okay, but the question still–"

"I already answered that. I have built them."

"Well, then it would seem we are set to invade either house, no matter what is inside of them," Bond said.

"All right, it's decided. We'll get the Quantum member's plans tonight and then hit the other house tomorrow," 008 concluded.

"You don't want these copies that I made two nights ago?" Matteo asked, grinning evilly.

"Wait, you – what?"

"These photocopies of the dear man's copies of the Quantum plans. I made them two nights ago as a preemptive strike. The man hasn't even noticed, and I used five reams of his own paper _and_ his copying machine to do so."

"Oh. What about the other man's house?"

"Well, unless you want me to do that tonight, then I haven't done anything there."

"Well… all right, but we are going to go in with you and help. That way it won't take as long. Oh, yeah. Does that man have a Xerox machine, too?"

"No, he doesn't have a Xerox machine. He does have a color copier, however. The other man didn't, so I had to make some temporary adjustments and additions to get the color copies that I have here." He paused, then, "I do hope he doesn't mind having slightly more grayscale copies from now on."

Austria

Vienna

20:11:37

Bond, 008, Will, and Matteo were sitting outside of the other Quantum-owned house in Austria, finalizing details for the invasion of the man's house. The plan was relatively simple, with the four of them going in and making copies while not setting off any alarms.

"Relatively simple on paper. To actually pull this off, we're going to need Matteo's cloaking device to go around all four of us," Bond said. "Matteo, do you think it will work?"

"I don't know." He then pulled out a small radio and whispered something that no one caught into it. He listened for a moment, and then, "PROXY gives it a ten percent chance of going off without a hitch, fifty percent likelihood that it doesn't work but we don't get caught, and a thirty-five percent chance that at least one of us gets caught."

"Who is PROXY, and what is the other five percent?" Will asked.

"PROXY is an assistant of sorts to me, and the other five percent is that we all get killed by the guards," Matteo said bluntly. "Of course," he added, "that is also assuming that they are able to catch _all_ of us, which is why it only has a five percent likelihood of occurring."

"Yeah, well, we could always use Jenni as bait," 008 offered, "Then we wouldn't have to pay her."

"Especially with the price she's asking," Bond agreed.

"So are we going in or not?" Will asked.

"Sure. Just let me finalize a few things on this first," Matteo said.

"What do you need to finalize?"

"The gyros are acting up again. If I don't fix them, we'll all fall off and get detected right away."

Half an hour later, they were ready. Going into the grounds was easy, since there were only five guards in the entire six acre plot of land. Getting into the house wasn't much harder, because they had Matteo with them. The room with the files, though, had security to rival that of a bank. Having three shifts of guards, there were always four guards securing the vault's door, which was protected by a password, a code, voiceprint identification, and handprint scan.

Going back into an adjacent hallway, they started throwing around their ideas.

"Well, all I can say is knock out the guards and break into the vault. It's the most direct way of getting in, and since there are four of us, we can each knock one out. They won't be able to do a thing, either, because we'll be in the cloaking device. Then Matteo can hotwire the contraption to get us in," Will suggested.

"Problem one, I can't get the cloaking field to extend that far. Problem two, you can't just hotwire a handprint scanner or code pad. The password I can figure out, but the code and handprint scanner I can't fool. The problem with the handprint scanner is that it's one of those 3D types where it fills in the grooves with a gel and then scans that. The voiceprint I.D. is easy to fool with a recording of the Quantum member's voice and a good set of speakers," Matteo shot back.

"Can't we just melt the lock?" 008 asked.

Everyone looked at 008, then Matteo said, "That's the best idea I've heard in a long time about breaking into a vault. Just let me find an acid that's strong enough to melt the lock and not the door. Of course not, you moron!"

"Why don't we wait until the shift changes and get in then? Usually the new shift is supposed to check to make sure nothing got disturbed while the last shift was guarding the vault, in the case of a knockout gas being used or a power outage," Bond said.

"That's it! We'll cause a power outage. Then the vault's locks will be loose, because it's connected to an electronic system," 008 said.

"Well, this section of the hall is clear of any sensors or cameras, so I'll drop you here and cut the power lines. Then once you have the documents, just take them. We'll copy them later," Matteo said.

In ten minutes' time, the power had been cut. Bond, 008, and Will all rushed into the vault in the ensuing chaos. The guards had been called out to the grounds in the case of an invasion outside. Once inside the vault, they grabbed anything that looked important and headed out to be picked up by Matteo. The only problem was that Matteo wasn't there.

"_Scheiße_*!" Will exclaimed.

"I knew that I shouldn't have been on this operation! Now my bad luck is spreading to the rest of you guys!" Mike said.

"Where's Matteo?!" Bond asked.

"I don't know!" 008 said. "Matteo, now would be nice, before the guards come in and capture us with all these papers as evidence."

Several agonizing moments later, Matteo popped up, saying, "Sorry for the delay, but all of a sudden Alex wanted to be fed."

"That was a hell of a time to decide to feed your cat!" Bond yelled.

"When Alex is hungry, it's best not to ignore him, or else he gets vicious."

"I don't give a damn how vicious he can get, he's a bloody _cat_! Cats are not more important than our safety!"

"Bond, trust me. You do _not_ want to see Alex like that. There are only two people alive that have seen Alex like that, and they are Matteo and myself. If it weren't for Matteo's intervening, I wouldn't even be here," 008 commented.

"Oh. Point taken. But still, can you hurry up and get us out of here?"

"Just a moment and we'll be away. I need to wrap the cloaking field around all of us again," Matteo said.

Once they were out of the grounds, none of them looked back.

Austria

Vienna

07:34:16

"So I want to know how you guys were able to get in _and_ out without even getting noticed, and with all these papers in tow, at night, at a house that was better guarded than your above average bank," Jenni said sourly.

"Well, there is this sort of–" Will began.

"What Will means is that we had a kind of ace in the hole helping us," 008 interrupted while Bond explained to Will that 008 wanted Matteo to remain a secret from Jenni at least.

"An ace in the hole, eh. Well, if you're going to play that game, I'm going to increase my fee for services rendered."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I will triple my fee, to be rendered by the same person each time," Jenni stated, smirking.

"I will kill you right now, you _puttana_*!" Brittney screamed, launching herself at Jenni.

"When did you teach her the Italian?" Bond asked 008 while the others tried to pry the two fighting women apart.

"I didn't. It would seem that she either knew it already or she asked someone else," 008 replied.

"At any rate, due to our efforts last night, we can determine what to do and where to go from here. So after analyzing the documents, we can determine what else we need to do here before moving on," Mike said.

About two hours later, they had finished analyzing the documents and verifying their contents. They were interrupted once when Heidi came in with a newspaper, the headline being that a large theft of confidential documents had occurred the night before and that an investigation was underway.

"Well, it would seem that they noticed the aftermath of our actions, so we'll have to move quickly. At any rate, according to these papers, the next large Quantum action will be in the United States, in the Midwest."

"Wait. If they're a terrorist organization, why are they attacking the Midwest? It's just a big cornfield," Jenni questioned.

"First of all, they are not _terrorists_, they are _extortionists_. There is a difference. Secondly, the Midwest is not just a huge cornfield," 008 stated.

"How would you know that, you're just a little kid compared to the rest of us!" Jenni accused.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that last part and spare your life. I know that it's not just a huge cornfield because I've been there before, you _fucking WHORE_!" 008 exclaimed suddenly. "Now I would appreciate it if you no longer made fun of my homeland."

"Wait, what? Are you saying that you're American?" Bond asked. "You must be a British citizen to be part of Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"I never said that I am not a denizen of Britain, but I never said that I was only British by birth, either," 008 clarified. "Yes, my parents are British, so I inherited their British citizenship, but I was born and raised in America, and that gave me American citizenship, so I consider it my homeland."

"Oh. I didn't realize that."

"Now, if we're done discussing citizenship, let's move on," Brittney said.

"Well, then, to America it is," Will concluded. "Heidi, I am going to be away for a while. Will you be all right?"

"Ja, meine Liebhaber," came Heidi's voice from another room.

"So what are we waiting for? Let's go," Said Brittney.

The United States of America

Indianapolis

19:51:28

When their plane landed in the Indianapolis International Airport, Jenni gawked, being the only one in the group who had not been to America before.

"You know, I never knew that America was so big. On a globe, it looks so small compared to Russia," Jenni said.

"Well, the communists were known for exaggerating certain things, no offense to the Communists," Bond replied.

"None taken."

They headed out, and Brittney drove them around, since she was the only one in the group that still had an American driver's license that hadn't expired, while 008 gave directions around Indianapolis. They eventually stopped at an Italian restaurant, since none of them had had any food since they left Austria that morning.

"Why couldn't we stop at a place that serves Russian food?" Jenni complained.

"Because we Americans don't have any restaurants that I know of that serve such things. Instead, we have Italian, Greek, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. You name it, as long as it isn't Russian, we probably have it," Brittney said.

Suddenly Felix Leiter walked in and sat down with the group at their table.

"So how's everybody doing?" Leiter asked. "Brittney, you still dragging them down? Oh, Mike, I didn't see you there. How are things in Japan?"

"For your information, Leiter, I have been sending you monthly reports on what is happening in Japan. If you bothered to read them, you might have a clue as to what has been going on," Mike said with a cold stare at Leiter.

"Also, Brittney is actually making significant contributions to the group now. Her ideas further our plans, and she is an invaluable scout for field work," 008 added.

"Really? I had the idea that she might have gotten you in a tight spot already. No such luck, eh?"

"I suddenly get the idea that you don't like these particular subordinates of ours, do you?" Will asked.

"Ah. William Mahoney. Member of the Navy Seals for seven years, resigned, gone to England to join MI6, our counterparts in Britain. Not much more in your dossier, I'm afraid. How are you?"

"You haven't answered my question."

"Not particularly, no. I don't really like them."

"I knew it! I should quit right here, you fucking bastard, but I need the money," Brittney said.

"Now, now. No need for violence," Bond said, breaking up the potential fight before it could get any worse.

"Leiter, cut to the chase. Are we going to get any more help from your department, or will we have to make our own way here in America?" 008 asked bluntly.

Leiter thought for a moment, then, "I can spare you one more agent from my department. After that, though, you're on your own, because I'm sparing one of my top agents for this."

"So who is it?"

"I'm assigning White Bishop to you. She knows the territory, having been raised around here, and she will be accompanying you to wherever else you go after here, just like the other agents."

008 smiled. "I thank you for your generosity. May relations between our governments prosper for years to come."

Everybody but Leiter and 008 looked at each other, unsure as to what 008 meant by this.

"Well, unfortunately, I have to leave, so I'll see you later," Leiter said, rising to go out of the restaurant.

After Leiter had left, Bond asked, "What did you mean with that last statement?"

"Exactly what I said. I appreciate his generosity in assigning us with White Bishop."

Bond looked at Mike and Brittney, his eyes questioning. They both shrugged, and Mike said, "I don't know. Then again, Leiter never told me about any of the agents in his department other than himself and Brittney and a couple of other low-ranking recruits."

"Same here. She might be a newer recruit into the ranks, because I've never heard mention of her in any reports, and I used to be Leiter's secretary. I'm drawing a blank, especially as to why the hell 008 seems to know her and neither of us do," Brittney said.

"I'm sure we'll find out in due time," Bond said. "That's a guarantee."

**Scheiße**: Shit (shī sə)

**Puttana**: Whore


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 7

The United States of America

Indiana

21:12:21

After driving for a while, the group finally arrived at the designated location, where they were to meet White Bishop. They got out of their vehicle, ready to meet the American agent.

"So why are we meeting her in Indiana, of all places?" Jenni asked.

"More specifically, why are we meeting her in Columbus, Indiana? It's not even a very major city," Brittney asked.

"008, can you shed some light on this situation, please?" Bond inquired.

"It's where she's stationed. She might be a bit late, by the way."

"How come you speak as though you know her so well? Was one of your previous assignments to find the dossiers of our best agents and read them?" Mike asked.

"Why I speak as though I know her is of no concern to you, nor do you need to know. Further, I did not need to read or find any dossiers of your agents."

"All right, you don't want to tell us, but can you at least tell us what she's like?" Jenni pressed.

"Well, I think that I'm at liberty to say that she is one of the best agents in the CIA, and her code name is White Bishop. As for the rest, I'm not sure whether or not I can say it, so I'll play it safe."

"You're getting really annoying right now, did you know that?" Will said. "So why don't you cut the mysticism and get on with it?"

"All right, I'll tell you one thing. I first met her when I was still living in the United States."

"Where in the United States did you live?"

"We're standing less than a mile from the house I grew up in."

"Oh, well that's just great. We have a mile radius circle to search in for where this kid was raised," Jenni said sarcastically.

"Well, when compared with the entire United States of America, it's actually quite a small area. Just be glad I didn't say five miles," 008 pointed out.

They sat there contemplating the last statement for a while, and then became bored and sat where they had been standing while they continued to wait for White Bishop to come. Finally, nearly two hours later, she arrived.

"About time she showed up. I was just about to start playing Russian Roulette with myself, I was so bored," Jenni said sarcastically.

"Why couldn't you do that and save us the cost of your plane tickets, food, and your payment?" Brittney asked. "Then we would all be much happier."

"Hello, sorry it took me so long. I'm White Bishop, but please call me Kira," White Bishop said, getting out of her car. Bond was awestruck. After all, it's not often that a girl so young becomes one of the top agents in the CIA, with a probability close to that of 008 being where he was in MI6. The fact that they looked like they were almost the same age had to be a coincidence, though. It couldn't have been planned.

Bond's suspicions were beaten down with the next words coming out of 008's mouth.

"Kira, it's been so long. How are you doing?"

"Jonathan!" was her only response, as she proceeded to fling herself into his arms.

"They know each other?"

"Yes, Will, it would seem that they know each other," Bond replied.

"How would they know each other, though?" Jenni asked.

"Well, 008 did say that he grew up around here, so logically, if she knows the lay of the land around here, the CIA would station her here."

When 008 and Kira had finished their brief reunion, they went back to an all-business approach.

"So here's the plan," 008 said. "As of tomorrow, we will be finding out where all the money that Quantum is using has been hidden. After that, we will go and infiltrate the different sites that Quantum is hiding the money at. When we are done with that, we will observe for a while before moving on."

"That's it? We're just going to _observe_ the fucking organization?" Will exclaimed violently.

"Let me clarify. We're going to spike their communications to try and figure out where their orders are coming from, so we can take them down before they can add to the damage that they have already inflicted," 008 responded.

"So why haven't we been doing that all along the way?" Bond asked.

"That's because up until now, we haven't had more than two targets to hit in a given country. We would have had to wait until we had three targets spiked so that we could wait for a large blanket order. Also, we were spiking them except in Japan, but I didn't tell you that I had Matteo doing that before we arrived at each place, while their security would still be lax. Ish."

"Who is Matteo?" Jenni asked.

"Well, Matteo is a sort of–" Brittney began.

Bond, Mike, and Will quickly rushed to explain why they didn't want Jenni to know about Matteo.

"Matteo is a sort of apprentice to me, and I'm teaching him about what I do. He is about on a par with a low-level agent right now, doing patrol and other things like that. Menial tasks, that's it," 008 lied.

"Oh. So that's why he's not here right now helping us."

"Exactly. Now, it's getting late, and we're going to have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. After all, we're going to raid one of the buildings tomorrow night," 008 said with an evil looking smile.

America

Columbus, Indiana

13:18:38

After arriving at Kira's base of operations and getting a good night's sleep, they went to work planning the first raid. Not knowing what the building would be like, they decided to take all necessary precautions. The first thing they did, after 008 finally consented to it, was reveal what Matteo really did to Jenni.

"Oh. So you were withholding information that could have been vital to the success of the mission. For that, I am going to quadruple your current payment."

"Just let me shoot her already!" Brittney pleaded.

"Why are you increasing it yet _again_?" 008 asked.

"What's wrong, Jonathan? You can probably afford anything she wants you to pay her. Lord knows that you've got enough," Kira said.

"She doesn't want money," Bond explained. "She wants 008 to fuck her. Currently the count is twelve times, after that last increase."

"_WHAT_?!!" Kira screamed, astonished.

"We needed her help, and she wouldn't budge, so I had to take the offer," 008 said. "Don't worry, though. I'll get around it somehow," he added in a whisper to Kira.

"I don't care _how_ desperate you were, you shouldn't have taken an offer like that!" Kira scolded.

"Can we please get back to planning?" Will asked.

"Matteo, you can come into the visible spectrum now," Mike added.

Matteo proceeded to "pop" up (literally, even with a popping noise) behind Jenni. "Greetings, fellow carbon-based life forms," he said.

Jenni screamed. Everybody else just said, "Hello, Matteo," almost simultaneously without even bothering to look up.

Other than that, however, the rest of the planning went relatively smoothly. At one point Jenni asked why Matteo was wearing a gigantic coat even though the room was at around eighty degrees.

"Oh, I store everything in my coat," Matteo answered.

"Everything?" Jenni asked dubitably.

"Yes, everything," he responded. He then proceeded to pull a pool table out of one of the pockets. "It's multidimensional, see?"

Jenni screamed. Again. The rest of the group then played a game of pool while Jenni had a small nervous breakdown before they finalized the plans.

"All right, the target this time is in Louisville, Kentucky. We'll drive down there with Matteo storing all our equipment we'll be needing in his coat. Then we'll pull it out as needed," 008 said.

"Does the pool table count as equipment we'll be needing?" Matteo asked.

"Only if the guards want to play a game with some of us while the rest of us commit the raid," 008 said sarcastically.

Matteo then proceeded to stuff the pool table into the pocket with all their equipment.

America

Louisville, Kentucky

14:50:47

After they finally found the building, they parked their van in a nearby parking garage. Once they were all outside the van, they quickly headed to the building disguised as a maintenance team, complete with sensors (provided by Matteo).

"What are you doing here?" one of the guards outside asked.

"Routine safety check of the wiring in the facility," Bond responded. "My team and I will need to be undisturbed while we do this. We need these rooms to be empty when we check them," he added, pulling out a blueprint of the building with rooms circled in red ink.

"I'll need to check to see if you can go into those rooms, so wait right there," the guard said, reaching towards the phone in his station.

The guard talked with someone for a few minutes, then, "All right, you have clearance for all the rooms except this one." He pointed to a room that they had circled.

"Last check, the team that was here had to install some new wiring there, and we need to check to see how it's holding up. If we can't get in there, we won't be able to check you guys off as safe and you'll start getting more visits from the Fire Marshall," Will said, covering for Bond.

"All right, I'll escort you there and explain the situation. You'll probably have to do that room first, but I should be able to get you in there."

They proceeded inside. The guard waved off others in the building as they made their way to the restricted room, and after a brief discussion, it was decided that one of them could go in. The group selected Matteo, since all their communications would be traveling through the wires in that particular room and he was the only one who knew which cables were which. Matteo decided that it would be simpler to put a spike on each of the phone cables and internet cables. He didn't bother with the TV cables. After he was done in that room he came out and gave a thumb up.

"The room checks out," Mike said.

They were able to "check" the rest of the wiring in the building undisturbed and then left. On the way back, they discussed how things had gone.

"Why electricians? I still don't understand why we had to disguise ourselves," Jenni said.

"If we hadn't, they would have suspected something was up. We won't be disguising ourselves for the last strike," Bond said.

"And when is that?" Will asked, impatient for a firefight.

"With any luck, tomorrow night. We have one other location in the U.S. that we need to visit," Kira said.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 8

United States Of America

Columbus, Indiana

18:39:54

"Okay, so the raid went pretty well," Mike commented.

"What do you mean, raid? We didn't do anything!" Will complained.

"Yeah, but we will be doing something tomorrow night," Bond said.

They had gotten back to Kira's base of operations in Columbus, and were supposed to be planning for their next operation, which was designed specifically to gain Quantum's attention.

"Okay, so what do we do next, Jonathan?" Kira asked.

"I get my payment," Jenni said.

"Slut," Brittney responded.

"I think we should have a pinball tournament!" Matteo said, already pulling out a pinball table.

"Everybody, we need to stop playing around and get to work. Tomorrow we will raid the other large Quantum operation that we found here in the U.S. This time it will be an actual raid, so Will, you will get a firefight. Matteo, I need you to get out guns and ammunition." Matteo started to pull a M1 Abrams tank out of his coat, but Bond and Will quickly stopped him. "Furthermore, this time we won't be finding blueprints of the building, because our objective is to create chaos and wreak havoc. Will, since you are a former Navy Seal, I will leave the strategic and tactical planning to you. Finally, we will need to plant a bomb in the building to blow up when we are done. Any questions?" 008 asked.

"Does anybody here even know how to set up a bomb?" Brittney asked, ever practical.

"I do," Matteo responded for 008.

"All right, it's settled. Matteo will give us whatever equipment we need, and Will can handle all the planning. Everyone, let's get ready to work!" 008 concluded. "Oh, Matteo, we might want the Scorpion tank just in case."

"You mean Sheila*?" Matteo asked.

"Yes, Matteo, Sheila."

Everybody else just exchanged questioning glances.

The next day, they headed out.

America

A Plane Somewhere over the U.S.

12:08:34

"_We will be landing in Fort Myers, Florida, in approximately 30 minutes,_" the flight attendant's voice said over the intercom."_We ask that you now fasten your safety belts for landing. The temperature in Fort Meyers is now_…"

It had been a relatively long flight, because they had had to change planes in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, but they were finally arriving at their destination.

Bond didn't know whether to be relieved or tense. After all, Matteo had made it through the Airport security fine at both airports, but he didn't know if all of a sudden something would pop out of his coat.

008 sat next to Kira, and the two were talking almost nonstop. Bond guessed that they were catching up on all that had transpired since they had last seen each other. He also surmised that 008 was trying to convince her to move to England. From some of her remarks, however, she was putting up an equally worthy argument for why he should move back to America.

Once they had landed, they all got off the plane and rented a van to go to the target building so that they could scope it out. The building itself didn't look like it was very high-security on the outside, but if you looked closely, you could make out where the guards' posts were situated and where they could poke a gun out and shoot you unimpeded. "_Well, at least we'll have _some _opposition_," Bond thought.

After scouting out the building, they went to their hotel and started planning the strike. Each of them had their own ideas, but the one that eventually won was presented by Will.

"Okay, so first things first, we take out their power lines. That puts them in the dark until they can get their backup generators, if they have any, started up. Having done that, we will then go into the building, wearing Infrared goggles. We will not be wearing the kind that merely amplifies the existing light, because then we'll be blinded when they get their lights back up. Instead it will actually display the body heat of the surrounding area. Once inside, we will get as far as we can by just sneaking around, using non-lethal means on as many guards as possible. We will only use silenced pistols. When we reach a room that is as close to the center as possible, we will set up the bomb. When the bomb has been set, we will run like hell to get out. We won't bother setting up an information spike. Any questions?" Will summarized.

"Yes. How long will the timer be set for?" Kira asked.

"I don't know yet. We'll have to decide that based on how long we think that it will take for us to get out without them having time to defuse the bomb."

"If Matteo is in the room with us, we can set it to be as short as we want to, because he can just teleport us out of there," 008 commented.

"There's just one problem with that, and that's that my teleporter can only accommodate a maximum of three people other than me. Without damaging it and guaranteeing that we end up where we want to be, that is," Matteo corrected.

"The other thing is that this is based on the assumption that Matteo is with us. If he isn't, we'll have to set it to go off in a reasonable amount of time, or we can wire the bomb for a remote detonator and detonate it when we get to a safe distance from the building. The other advantage of this plan is that it is harder to disable a remote detonation device than a timer," Bond added.

"All right, then it will be detonated remotely. Otherwise, are there any questions?" Will asked.

"Why does Matteo have to come along?" Jenni asked nervously.

Everybody just ignored her.

America

Fort Myers, Florida

23:57:34

They were waiting outside of the building, waiting for the right time to attack the building, and Matteo, in his boredom, had begun reassembling the Miata that he had taken apart earlier.

"All right, there's less than three minutes left until they switch the guards. They won't be expecting an attack when there are practically twice the number of guards available for defense of the building. When they switch, Matteo will create a large diversion with some fireworks–" Matteo pulled some fireworks out of his coat. "–and we will sneak inside the building. Hopefully we will be inside the building by the time the guards' attention is back on what they are supposed to be doing," Will said, going over the plan one last time. "Matteo will then drive into the building, literally, in a tank, creating a very large disturbance. Matteo will draw the attention of almost all the guards, allowing us to go further into the building undisturbed, and we will plant the bomb. We will then high-tail it out of there and detonate the bomb remotely as soon as Matteo gets clear too. Any questions?"

"Should we leave the tank there?" 008 questioned. "It will keep the guards' attention away from the building."

"An admirable idea, 008."

"But I don't want to leave Sheila behind," Matteo complained.

"Nobody ever said you had to use Sheila."

"I know, but I like Sheila.

They saw the next shift of guards coming in to take over.

"It's time! Go!" Will exclaimed.

Getting in the building was relatively, no, make that insanely easy. With Matteo running distractions with fireworks and also some grenades, rocket launchers, and gunfire (courtesy of basic robots that he pulled out of his coat), the guards were actually pulling other guards out of the building to help defend the location.

Once inside the building, they fanned out and took three different routes to the designated location, to make sure that they would have at least one clear path out.

Will, Mike, and Jenni went straight up the center. They were soon halted by a patrolling guard. Without pausing, Will loosed three rounds from his Heckler and Koch P7 into the man's chest. Otherwise, they proceeded without any problems. Bond and Brittney had a little more trouble, running into a patrol of four guards, but they, too dispatched of them quickly and efficiently.

It was 008 and Kira that found themselves in a firefight. Surrounded by a squad of sixteen guards, they had no choice but to fight, else they risk being caught.

"Drop your weapons! Surrender now and we won't harm you," one of the guards ordered.

"I'm afraid we can't do that," Kira said as she drew a second Desert Eagle and shot two of the guards in front of her. 008 acted in a similar fashion, except he pulled out his _kodachi_ instead of a second pistol and started a kind of dance where he would get in close to one guard and slash with the _kodachi_ and then shoot one of the other guards almost simultaneously. They worked well as a team, dispatching all 16 with ease.

"Well, considering the amount of time since we last practiced that kind of routine, I'd say we did pretty well together," Kira commented, and then kissed 008 on the cheek.

In five minutes' time, they had all gathered in the room and were setting up the bomb. Once that operation had finished, they proceeded back out of the building the way that Will and Jenni had come, since they had encountered the least guards.

That turned out to be a bad idea, because they soon ran into three squads of sixteen guards each, with a fourth that came up behind them.

"Stop! We have you surrounded. Lay down your arms and surrender peacefully, or we will be forced to shoot!" an officer shouted at them.

"Can't you guys learn to say anything other than the same B.S. as every other guard?" Jenni asked.

She let that insult sink in for a moment before she drew her Makarov PM and shot the officer right between the eyes. The only problem with the action that she performed was the location. Being in the middle of an intersection, they were open to crossfire, but that is why the guards hesitated. They didn't want to risk hurting their teammates on the other side of the invaders.

Will took advantage of the pause to draw his custom-made Kalashnikov that he had gotten off a Russian corpse while he was still in the Seals. Without pausing to aim, he started firing into the squad directly in front of him. Bond and Brittney performed similar actions with their PPKs, but they bothered to aim first. Mike drew out a radio and contacted Matteo, asking him to drive the tank straight into the hallway they needed to get out through, before drawing out his Beretta 92SB. 008 just sighed, drew two _kodachi_ and started hacking all the guards he could see to bits.

With perfect timing, Matteo burst through the front entrance in an M1 Abrams tank, with PROXY (disguised as Caboose from Red Vs. Blue) manning the machine gun turret. The guards began to run away, screaming. All the others quickly made a break for it and ran towards the cover of the tank. Matteo, popping up through a hatch, yelled, "Everybody, get in!" over the din of crumbling walls and the tank's engine.

It was cramped, but they got everybody inside. "I'm amazed that we can fit nine people in this tiny tank cockpit!" PROXY/Caboose said. Jenni started complaining, so 008 threatened to stuff her into one of Matteo's coat pockets. It's amazing how quickly she shut up after that.

Once they had driven the tank outside of the building, the few forces that remained got into Humvees and started pursuit of the tank.* Matteo had PROXY/Caboose swing around the turret of the tank and start to fire on the Humvees with the machine gun while Bond and Will operated the main cannon, with 008 and Mike taking spent shells and handing them new ones.

For a pursuit with 20 Humvees chasing just one tank, it was remarkably long. It took them almost ten minutes to catch up, with Will and Bond destroying one (it took a couple of shots to get used to aiming the cannon). Unfortunately, by this time, the lead Humvees had almost caught up, and using the main cannon against them at this range was like using a fifty-cal on a chocolate bar. Yeah, you'll hit it, but the shrapnel is kind of annoying when it hits a vital part of the tank (like the fuel tanks).

"Don't shoot them at this range!" Will yelled at Bond after shrapnel from the nearest Humvee almost obliterated PROXY/Caboose's head.

"Sorry!" Bond yelled back. "We'll have to use less powerful means now!"

"Really?" 008 asked sarcastically. "I was wondering when you'd finally get around to saying that." He then pulled out his Walther P99, aimed, and shot the back left tire of the next Humvee.

The result was better than 008 could have planned. The Humvee careened into the side of the one next to it, totaling both vehicles. He pointed PROXY/Caboose in the right direction to start shooting, and due to their combined effort, they were able to take out another five.

By this time, there were only three Humvees left. Seeing that their comrades had all been practically obliterated, they decided to turn back. Will started to aim the turret at one of them.

"No, Will, let them go," 008 commanded. "We need witnesses if we want a major message to triangulate from."

Once they couldn't see the building or the vehicles anymore, Matteo stopped the tank and they all got out.

Then they remembered that they hadn't detonated the bomb.

Will pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

Nothing happened.

"Perhaps we're out of range," Brittney said.

"No way. This thing has a one mile range."

"Will, try stepping one foot to your left and pressing it," Matteo suggested.

He looked at 008, who nodded, and did as Matteo said.

The explosion was spectacular. Not only did the entire twenty pound pack of C4 decimate the entire building, but it also sent huge chunks of it flying into the night sky, as well as a huge fireball.

"Well, I'd say a job well done," 008 said, his face illuminated by the light from the explosion. "Let's head back to the hotel."

"Not yet. I want to watch the pretty fire die down," Brittney said, her eyes glassy.

Matteo started packing everything back into his coat, then paused and said, "I agree with Brittney. Let it die down a bit first, and then we'll go back to the hotel." Then he resumed packing.

Mike and Will also decided to watch the fire, and then Jenni. "Well, majority vote wins," 008 said, shrugging.

While all the rest watched the fire, Bond went to clean his gun, since it had gotten a lot more use than he had expected. PROXY had disappeared into Matteo's coat. 008 and Kira decided to take some more time to catch up on recent events.

The next morning, they headed back to Kira's base of operations.

America

Columbus, Indiana

14:16:17

It had been only half a day since the raid, but already an organization-wide call had been made to Quantum bases around the world, telling them to double security and watch out for a large group of people (about 150 was their estimate, but they couldn't be sure since they hadn't actually seen most of Matteo's droid "army").

Those who were good with the triangulation equipment were trying to figure out where the call originated from, but it's signal seemed to be coming from multiple stations, which suggested a relay system to the different bases.

"Well, all we really have to do is tag some of the relay stations and attack another target, right?" Mike said.

"Mike, it isn't that easy. We still don't have a complete list of the relay stations, and we'll need that to choose our targets carefully. We also don't want to end up in the same cities as before, so we'll need to pick targets that are relatively remote compared to our first targets," Brittney explained.

"You guys didn't look at the complete list of relay stations that we got from the Quantum guy's house, did you?" Matteo asked, grinning evilly.

"Hand that to me now!" 008 demanded. "You've been holding this from us, haven't you?"

"Well, it was actually PROXY's idea," Matteo lied.

"Who is PROXY?" everyone but Matteo, Kira, Bond, and 008 asked almost simultaneously.

"Great, Matteo, now we'll have to tell them who PROXY is, and he's one of your greatest secrets," 008 scolded.

"Withholding more information from me?" Jenni asked, grinning. "Now I'll have to–"

"Jenni, before you continue, it was on Matteo's request, so take it up with him."

"Oh," Jenni said.

"PROXY is a protocol droid with an AI so advanced that he can mimic almost perfectly any person in his databanks. Voice, clothing, attitude, personality, psychology, and gestures. He has complete histories on each of the people in his databanks, but he also has a protocol that requires him to kill his master, so he tries on an almost daily basis to kill both Matteo and myself, when we're around. Otherwise, he's a great help," 008 said.

"He…tries…to _kill_ you?" Jenni said, aghast.

"Yes. Obviously, though, he has never succeeded."

"You didn't tell me that," Bond said, his eyes narrowing.

"That's because I deemed it irrelevant at the time. Anyways, he wouldn't have tried to kill you, because you're not one of his masters."

"That's cool!" Mike exclaimed.

Everyone stared at Mike. Matteo reached into his coat and pulled PROXY out. PROXY was disguised as Darth Vader.

"Wait. So, in the square in Moscow, that was PROXY?" Brittney asked.

"Yes, it was me," PROXY said in his normal voice, transforming back into himself.

"Wait. Can I ask you to transform into something for entertainment purposes?" Mike asked.

"Yes," was the droid's reply.

"I want you to transform into a zombie infected by the T-Virus, like in the Resident Evil games."

008 looked at Mike, horrified. "You want him to transform into that?"

"Just to see if he can," Mike replied.

"Certainly, Master. Of course I can," PROXY said, transforming into a T-virus infected zombie.

At first, he just kind of stood there. Everybody but Jenni, since she didn't know what the Resident Evil games were like (having grown up in Russia), started backing away. Then, suddenly, he attacked Jenni, biting at her neck, until 008 took out his P99 and shot PROXY in the head.

Since PROXY was only doing a holographic simulation of what would have happened, as soon as he was shot, he fell down and the illusion went away. Jenni stood there, white as a ghost. "Be glad it was PROXY, and the T-virus doesn't exist, because if it had really been a T-virus infected zombie, I would have had to shoot you in the head, too, because you would have been infected with the T-virus and would have become a zombie yourself," 008 said.

Jenni then fainted.

"As for you, Mike, no more asking PROXY who or what he can transform into."

"Aww," Mike complained.

PROXY then got up, saying, "But master, if it had been you that I had attacked, then maybe I would have been able to finally kill you and fulfill half my programming."

"Yeah, well, keep trying. You'll eventually get me."

Everyone laughed, and Mike and Will dragged Jenni to a bed, since she was unconscious.

**A/N **Red Vs. Blue reference.

**A/N** For anyone who's seen Goldeneye, you should know that this is a bad idea, since compared to Humvees, a tank is indestructible.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 9

The United States of America

Columbus, Indiana

15:37:59

After looking at the map with the relay stations for the Quantum messages that Matteo had finally given them drawn on, they decided which target they should hit after spiking a couple of the relay stations.

"All right, the first target is here in America, so we'll spike it and go on. Then we need to go to Britain, and then Austria, to try and triangulate the location. Just to be safe, we'll go to Japan and place a spike at their relay station there," 008 said.

"Why not just have me do it?" Matteo asked, a disappointed look on his face.

"I was just about to have a vote on whether or not we should just have you do it."

"Oh, goody."

"All right, who thinks that we should just have Matteo do it and come back when he's done?"

Everybody raised their hands except for Will.

"I think that I speak for everybody but Will in saying that we've had enough action for now," Brittney said.

"I want more firefights!" Will said indignantly.

"We'll have more, I promise you that," Bond said reassuringly.

By this time, Matteo had already teleported away to start placing spikes and was done with two of the four relay stations.

About five minutes later, Matteo got back from placing spikes on all the relay stations.

"Okay, now we cause a little mayhem," 008 said, grinning.

America

Indianapolis, Indiana

18:54:20

"Okay, so we're here for our flight, and Matteo has gone ahead to my house to pick up a few things before we go on to the target location," 008 said in the airport.

"Come on and tell us where we're going. I'm tired of finding out at the last minute," Jenni complained.

"_Now boarding flight 349 for Milan, Italy. First Class passengers may now board the plane._"

"I've never been to Milan before. The only problem is that it's relatively large," Bond commented. "Still, though, I never would have imagined going to Milan. I figured you would have gone to Venice."

"Well, I wanted to, but then Matteo's toys would wreak a little too much havoc."

"Ah, yes. Matteo's toys can get a little destructive at times. After all, we don't want him to destroy _too_ many buildings."

"Actually, I was thinking of the streets, bridges, and canals, too. After all, a seventy-five ton vehicle is bound to destroy a lot, especially when it's about as wide as a four-lane street."

"What?"

"You'll see," 008 said, entering the plane.

Italy

Milan

05:16:37

After landing in Milan, the entire group decided to check into a hotel on the east side to get some sleep (Some of them didn't sleep well on airplanes).

"Si, Signor, quasi eccetto non posso fare tutto,*" The clerk said, frowning.

"Si, io capisco. Grazie,*" Bond said in reply.

The only problem was that the hotel didn't start renting out rooms that early in the morning.

"They can't rent out rooms to us, because their patrons are still asleep," Bond said to the group of groggy travelers (Kira, Brittney, and especially Jenni, who they had to carry off the plane). "We'll have to go somewhere else."

"I understand," 008 replied.

They headed out of the hotel, with Will and 008 taking turns to carry Jenni, and Bond leading the way. Soon they found themselves outside a setup that looked a lot like Mike's setup in Japan had been. Bond asked Mike if there were any other American agents in this area. Mike said something to Bond, and Bond walked in.

"Ciao. Sei Signor Giovanni?" Bond asked a man who sat behind a counter.

"Si, Signor Bond. Although I must admit, I thought you to be more of the kind of person who would go for Venice," the man said. "I'm Giovanni. CIA."

Giovanni was tall and thin, and wore a leather jacket. The jacket worked well to conceal the pistol that he wore, and Bond had almost missed it. "What kind?" he asked, indicating the pistol.

"Heckler and Koch P9S. Small and reliable."

"Especially for a nine-mil. Do you mind if my associates come in and rest? Some of them don't do well sleeping on a plane."

"Certainly, Mr. Bond. You have six with you, I think?"

"You are well informed."

"Yes, well being friends with the airport staff comes in handy sometimes. All I had to do was ask them to tell me if there were any groups or single foreigners coming in with either a lot or very little luggage. They radioed me as soon as they saw that you were only really equipped for two or three days at most, when usually travelers to Milan and Italy in general are equipped for a much longer stay."

"Well, I need to gesture them in. Do you have enough room?"

"It might be a bit tight, but the operations room should be enough."

Bond walked outside and gestured the rest of the group inside the building.

"Very nice setup. It's almost like mine was in Japan," Mike commented as he walked in.

Next was 008, carrying Jenni, then Brittney, Kira, and finally Will, bringing up the rear.

"Upstairs to the operations room," Giovanni directed.

"I think I recognize you. Are you Jacob, from the Midwest of the United States?" 008 asked as he passed Giovanni.

"You are as astute as ever, Jonathan. Long time no see," he replied. "Yes, I am Jacob, as you surmised."

"You two know each other? How?" Mike asked.

"Like I said, 'Midwest.' How could you have missed that? We went to the same high school. Not at the same time, though. He was a senior when I started my freshman year," 008 said.

"How many grades did you skip?" Bond asked.

"Very sharp, Mr. Bond. He skipped three," Kira said blearily. "As did I."

"Three?" Bond asked dubitably.

"Yes, Bond, three," 008 confirmed, then carried Jenni up to the operations room.

After a few hours rest, the group was finally wide awake, save 008, who had fallen asleep after the rest of them, with his gear still on.

"Oh, he looks so cute and defenseless while sleeping," Jenni said. "I wonder if he would notice if I touched him."

"I wouldn't advise that," Kira warned, too late.

Jenni was already reaching down, but she never actually touched him. When her hand was about one inch from his face, he bolted awake, and with one swift movement, drew one of his _kodachi_ and placed it against her throat, drawing blood. When he realized who it was, he immediately withdrew the blade, wiping it against a piece of cloth before returning it to its sheath.

"Sorry about that. I'm a light sleeper when it comes to physical contact," 008 apologized. "I also immediately assume the worst whenever it happens to me during a mission."

"A good trait in an agent," Will said approvingly. Brittney vehemently nodded agreement, but that may have just been because it was Jenni that it had happened to.

"Anyways, it's time to plan the strike. Jacob, would you like to join us?" 008 said.

"No thank you, but I will try to assist you in any way possible."

"Well then, I'm going to need you to contact the authorities and have them blockade this section of the city, getting all the inhabitants out of it too," 008 said, pulling out a map and circling part of it with a red marker, "Then I'm going to need you to…"

Will smiled, expecting another firefight. Bond groaned, knowing that they were going to cause a _lot_ of damage. When 008 had finished, everybody had taken a stance on the plan, and most of them were positive.

"So what are you going to do about any damage that we cause?" Bond asked.

"What damage?" 008 asked innocently.

"The damage that you said Matteo was going to be causing, not to mention our own damage."

"Oh. Matteo will be handling that part."

Bond had been afraid that 008 would say that.

Italy

Milan

19:35:12

They had planned three days until the strike, come up with a plausible cover story for evacuating the citizens of the part of Milan that they were emptying (made all the more convincing by Matteo's holograms), and wanted a night out on the town. The women went shopping, and Mike, Will, Bond, and 008 went to a casino (after all, since this is a fan fiction based off of James Bond, we need to have them gamble _sometime_).

The casino that Bond chose was relatively upper class, but 008 was not unnerved by it, nor was Will. The only one who seemed nervous was Mike.

"Come on, Mike, why are you so nervous?" Will asked, taunting him. "It's only a casino."

"That's exactly why I'm nervous. I'll win a lot of money, then my horrible luck will kick in and I'll lose it all in one swift stroke. It's how it happens every time," Mike responded.

"Well, suit yourself, but _I'm_ going to have some fun while you wallow in despair worrying about what might happen."

"Mike," 008 said after Will had gone off to the blackjack tables, "Here's a hint. Go to the roulette table, and always bet just red or black. Then, when you have five million dollars, cash it in and don't gamble any more. Remember, don't bet on the numbers, just red or black."

"Alright," Mike said, then he headed off to the roulette table.

"Well, Bond, where are you off to? Are you going to do the classic Baccarat, or are you going to do Hold-Em style poker tonight?" 008 asked casually.

"Well," Bond started.

"Or would you have to kill me if you told me that?" 008 added jokingly.

Bond laughed, then said, "I think I'll go off to the poker tables tonight."

"May I join you, then? I've never tried my hand at poker," 008 said.

"Certainly."

They headed off to the poker tables and sat down after getting one million dollars in chips.

Meanwhile, Will was having tremendous luck at blackjack. In just half an hour, he had amassed enough money to start a small bank. Bored of playing blackjack, he wandered over to the roulette tables. At the roulette tables, he encountered Mike, who, starting with one dollar, had already gotten 131,072 dollars betting on just red and black (that's seventeen wins). He watched Mike play a few more rounds, by which time he had amassed 4,194,304 dollars (twenty-two wins). He decided to intervene on Mike's behalf so that Mike could get even more money.

"Hey Mike, you know that you can get thirty-six times your money by betting on a single number, right?" Will asked, walking up to the table.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that I want to."

"Just bet it all on the number twenty-one next. I guarantee you it'll land there."

Mike did as Will said, and won. His grand total was now 150,994,944 dollars.

"I think I'll cash this in now," Mike said quietly.

"Hey, you owe me a quarter of that for telling you what to put it on. You can have the rest," Will said.

"How much is a quarter? I don't have a calculator," Mike complained.

"37,748,736 dollars," Will responded immediately.

"Really? I was afraid it would be more," Mike commented. "By the way, how'd you know it would land on twenty-one?"

"I didn't."

"I'm never trusting you again."

"Fine by me, I got thirty-seven million from it."

"Shut up."

Mike went to cash in his chips after separating Will's payment out, and got a check instead of the cash, since there was so much to cash in.

"Per cortesia, non ritornó*," the clerk had said to him, and Will, when he came.

Mike and Will then meandered over to the poker tables.

When 008 and Bond arrived, they sat at the same table. Each of them started with one million dollars. Within five hands, though, they each had about ten million dollars to their names, and decided to move to different tables, because otherwise they would be fighting each other for the money that they had already won.

Bond went to another poker table, with higher buy-ins. He got himself a spot and started raking the people there clean. After about ten hands of that, Mike and Will showed up, each of them looking pretty smug.

"Win big?" Bond asked.

"You could say that," Will replied.

They stayed until Bond had cleaned everybody at that table out of money. Bond headed to the counter to cash in his money.

"Perché mio?" the clerk moaned, writing out a check for forty million dollars.

008, instead of heading to another poker table, had wandered over to the roulette table. Here, in just two rounds, betting on the numbers each time, he had taken 10,234,658 dollars and turned it into 13,264,116,768 dollars.

He then went to the counter to cash it in.

The clerk filled out the check and then went to his manager. "Io abbandono," he said, and then proceeded to tell his manager the events that had transpired. His manager fainted on the spot.

When Bond, Mike, and Will found 008, they asked what he had done after he and Bond split up.

"Well, I took my winnings and multiplied them," 008 said. "Took two rounds for me to be happy with the amount."

"Where'd you go?"

008 told them.

"Wow. If only I were _that_ lucky," Will surmised.

"Maybe I should try that method next time I gamble. Make a lot of money and then go to the roulette table," Bond said.

"Are you good with math?" 008 asked.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"Because the way I did it was almost foolproof. I used the principles of physics to figure out how quickly the roulette ball would slow down, and then I created a mental diagram of the path as it slowed down. Into this model I figured an approximate speed of the roulette itself, noting the positions of the numbers before they started spinning it, and then another approximate speed for the roulette ball. Using these approximates, figuring an amount of error of ±5%, I was able to figure out a three number range that the ball would fall into, and I chose the middle, since there is a higher likelihood that it will fall into that one overall than either of the individual surrounding numbers, following the rules of a normal density curve for the probability."

"While I couldn't follow any of that, I'm sure it was much more reliable than Will's way of doing things," Mike said.

"How did Will do it?"

"He guessed that it would just fall in there."

"Well, Mike, I'm afraid that's how most normal people do it. Well, Bond? Do you think that you would be able to do that in your head?"

"Not quite," Bond admitted.

They then headed back to their temporary base of operations.

**A/N** - I don't speak Italian, nor have I taken any classes in it. What you have here is the result of an English-Italian dictionary and my knowledge of Spanish. If any of this is incorrect, please tell me so that I can fix it.

**Si, Signor, quasi eccetto non posso fare tutto**: Yes, sir, but I'm afraid I can't do that.

**Si, io capisco. Grazie**: Yes, I understand. Thank you.

**Ciao. Sei Signor Giovanni**: Hello. Are you Mr. Giovanni?

**Si, Signor Bond**: Yes, Mr. Bond.

**Per cortesia, non ritornó**: Please, don't come back.

**Perché mio**: Why me? (the first word is pronounced pār kā)

**Io abbandono**: I quit.


	12. Chapter 12

hapter 10

Italy

Milan

20:37:50

It was the night of the operation, and everyone in the section of the city likely to encounter fighting had been evacuated. Matteo had put up some sort of field around the buildings so that they couldn't be damaged. He had also brought in his pet cat, Alex, and his "pet" creation, the Mad Cat 'Mech, which he also called Alex. The Mad Cat was about two street lanes wide, three stories tall, and weighed seventy-five tons. The 'Mech was painted in an urban camouflage pattern, much to Matteo's objections. He said that it should be painted a fluorescent orange, since it was kind of hard to miss due to its size.

Fortunately, 008, and therefore reason, had won out.

"Matteo, I know we want to cause a disturbance, but at the same time, we want them to get up close so we can cause some mayhem before they really notice what's happening."

As for the 'Mech, well, it was, _huge_. Ginormous. Bond didn't really know what all it could do, but he had a feeling that he was going to find out one way or another. It had humongous missile racks, 20 to a side. From what 008 told him, it had four machine gun arrays, with multiple machine guns being put together as a chain of weapons, each and every one being fifty-cal, the missile racks, lasers that could cut through steel like a hot knife through butter, and Particle Projection Cannons (PPC's).

"They fire bolts consisting of high energy protons or ions," 008 had said. He had then made it a bit easier to understand by saying, "They pretty much fire artificial lightning, delivering physical and heat damage to the target."

"Sounds bad for whoever you're facing."

"Yes, but they do take time to charge up."

"Just how powerful are these PPC's?"

"Let's just say one that's just barely charged could blow up the M1 Abrams tank in one shot. _One_ PPC, that's _barely_ charged."

"Wow, that's powerful."

"Yeah. One fully charged PPC would devastate about half of an aircraft carrier. Two of them, goodbye carrier," Matteo said, popping up.

Bond saw that one of the displays on the screen of the laptop Matteo had plugged into the giant machine looked like a 3D dot pattern, and it was constantly moving and changing.

"Is that a power indicator or a landscape scan?" Bond asked, pointing to the display.

"This? No, that's my media player's default video for songs," Matteo said. He un-muted the computer. It was _Working Man_ by Rush. "Fits what I'm doing, doesn't it?"

Bond walked away. _I'll never understand that person._ Then he saw 008 walk up to Matteo and start helping him. _I wonder how 008 does it_?

"It helps that I've known him for almost all my life," 008 said, suddenly appearing alongside Bond.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm able to understand him and what he says because I've known him almost all my life."

"Oh. I thought you were talking about something else. You know, sometimes I think you can read my mind," Bond said.

"No, I can't. Matteo just said that he thought that's what you were thinking about."

Bond laughed. "It's funny how good people can be at guessing."

They walked along for a bit, then Bond asked, "How does Matteo know where everything in his coat is? After all, I know it's multidimensional, but how can he know where it is in his pocket?"

"I don't know. I tried asking PROXY if he knew how, but he didn't know. Actually, his answer was less helpful than asking somebody who doesn't even know Matteo."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, he tried to kill me."

"Oh."

"Hey! I've got an idea. Jenni! Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Jenni ran over. "Yes, Jonathan?"

"First of all," 008 said, fixing her with the coldest stare Bond had seen the boy give, "calling me 'Jonathan' will not earn you any points in my book. I would prefer if you continued to call me 008. Second," he said, his face brightening up a bit, "I want to ask a favor of you."

"Sure. What is it?"

He told her.

"I won't do it! Never!"

"You already agreed. Maybe you shouldn't have been so willing to help me. Besides, exploring a pocket of Matteo's coat can't be _that_ bad. You just have to watch out for anything that can kill you," 008 said in a reassuring tone.

"You know, 008, that might not work to reassure her," Bond said.

"Damn right, it doesn't!"

"Oh, well," 008 said, picking up Jenni, who was screaming her lungs out, "I don't care. I've been curious to find out, and nothing she says will stop me."

"Ah, 008, I'd be careful around whom you say that," Bond warned.

"_I'm going to quintuple your current payment for this!!_" Jenni screamed from her position on 008's shoulder.

Suddenly, PROXY walked up to ask what was happening.

"Ah, PROXY, perfect timing. I want to ask you what the odds of Jenni coming out of one of Matteo's coat pockets alive are."

"The probability of surviving are 321,648 to one against," PROXY replied. "Why, are you going to stuff the annoying meatbag in?"

"Very astute, PROXY. Bond, what do you think? Are the odds low enough?"

"Well, I'm not sure you should–" Bond started to say.

"Ah, I'll take my chances. After all, even if she quintuples it, it's only sixty times."

They walked up to Matteo, who didn't notice them until Jenni kicked him, still wanting to get out of it.

"What is it? In case you hadn't noticed, I'm trying to calibrate a 'Mech here," Matteo said, annoyed.

"We wanted to stuff Jenni into one of your pockets for a while," 008 told him.

"Oh, okay. How long?"

"Let's make it about thirty minutes."

"_Thirty minutes? No way I'm going in there for an entire half an hour!_" Jenni screamed.

"Keep screaming, and I'll make it two days," 008 threatened.

She quickly shut up. Then Matteo opened one of his pockets, and they stuffed her in.

Italy

Milan

21:15:35

Everybody had gathered for the moment of truth, when they would fish Jenni out of Matteo's coat.

Matteo reached inside his pocket. He fished around for about three minutes before exclaiming, "Found her! Wait, no. That's something else." About two minutes later, he actually found her.

"So what was it like?" 008 asked the white-faced Jenni.

"It had…more pockets…inside…the pocket."

"And? What else?"

Jenni fainted.

"It's probably from the extreme stress of being in Matteo's coat," Bond commented.

"Serves her right for being such a slut," Brittney said. Kira nodded her head.

"I want to find out what it was like!" 008 said. "Matteo, do you have anything where we can review her memories of it?"

"Yes, and since she's already unconscious, we don't have to bother with knocking her out," he said, pulling out a device from his coat, "It even has the audio of what she was thinking at the time."

Matteo hooked the device up to Jenni's forehead and turned it on. Okay, so now we just go back about forty minutes," he said, fiddling with a couple of knobs, "and we can watch from there."

They watched Jenni's thoughts on the screen that Matteo hooked up via a VGA cable. Her first glimpses were of the inside of the pocket were of rows and rows of more pockets, each of them labeled a different thing. The other thing that they saw was that she was _floating_ in the middle of the pocket, not standing on anything.

She then got a bit curious and floated over towards one of the pockets. It had a label above it reading "Dagobah." It stank, so she got curious. Looking inside it, she saw Luke Skywalker and Yoda training. She then went to another pocket labeled "Hoth." It was cold to the touch, and she figured that if the pocket labeled "Dagobah" went to the planet Dagobah, then the pocket labeled "Hoth" would lead to the planet Hoth. She still peeked to be sure, and got an icy blast of wind in response. "Yep, I was right."

She then ventured through the pocket some more, coming upon a pocket labeled "The Hive."* She opened it up, wondering what was inside it. She was greeted by a host of zombies reaching upwards towards the rift in the time-space continuum that was created by the opened pocket. She screamed, closing the pocket. She then wandered, frightened, to another pocket, labeled "Raxus Prime."* She opened it, seeing a man shocking a giant golem made of junk via the force. That image just frightened her more, so she wandered on to another pocket, labeled "Narnia."* Opening it, she saw people being turned into stone by a sorceress in the midst of a huge battle. Floating to yet another pocket, labeled "Rome," she peered inside and saw people trying to escape from lions, practically being murdered. She turned to another pocket, even more scared than before, labeled "Bakumatsu Era Japan." Opening it, she saw more gruesome bloodshed than she had ever seen in her life as a single young swordsman with red hair and a cross-shaped scar on his left cheek hacked men into pieces with his bloodstained sword at an almost impossible speed.*

Thus it continued for the next twenty-seven minutes, color draining out of her face at an almost constant rate, as the scenes that she saw got ever more horribly detailed and frightening.

After they finished watching what the inside of Matteo's pocket (according to Jenni's memories) was like, they went back to work. Matteo took off his gadget and started to calibrate the 'Mech, and the rest of them went about getting supplies ready and cleaning their guns.

Italy

Milan

00:03:35

They walked up to the Quantum building as quietly as they could, parking the 'Mech about half a mile from the building, with 008 driving it. The plan was relatively simple for the first stage of the operation, because they simply had to draw them out, but the second stage got a little tricky, because at that point in time, they had to draw the Quantum guards, vehicles, and fire towards the area of the city they had emptied.

To do this, they planned on having 008 take the 'Mech in before the other vehicles could catch sight of it and run away, ruining the operation. The buildings would shield the 'Mech from view until they were almost on top of it. The only reason they needed the 'Mech up so close to the building in the first place was because they wanted to launch the missiles at the building first.

When they got in the mess of buildings, the plan was to simply pick off about half, letting the rest get almost back to the building before they blew it up with ten twenty-pound packs of C4, creating a more spectacular explosion than before, especially considering the building doubled as an armory for Quantum. These will have been planted while 008, in the 'Mech, was picking off the Quantum people.

This was assuming everything went according to plan, which rarely happens.

008 started off the operation by launching a salvo of forty missiles, which made myriad explosions upon hitting the building.

**A/N** Resident Evil reference

The Force Unleashed reference

Chronicles of Narnia reference

Rurouni Kenshin reference

The guards' response was immediate, preparing to strike back while also trying to put out the small fires that had popped up around the building.

008 had timed the missile launches so that the impacts and resulting fireballs would cover up the thundering footsteps of the seventy-five ton 'Mech for a while.

Once the guards got out of the building in whatever vehicles they had, which actually included a few tanks, they were attracted towards the low bass rumble that occurred rhythmically. Going towards the sound, which they figured was a threat, Bond and the rest headed in through the gate, which had not been closed.

In the confusion caused by the missile strikes, they were able to sneak into the building. They decided to split into groups of two, each going to different sites to plant the packs of C4. Bond went with Brittney to plant two of the packs, Mike and Kira went to plant another two packs, and Will went with Jenni to plant another two packs. Proxy went to a location by himself to plant a pack, and Matteo went to place the remaining three since he could just teleport around the building at will.

Meanwhile, 008 was having one of the best times of his life. He was able to simply walk among assault rifle and machine gun fire like he was invincible. The few tanks he saw he was able to simply blow up before they could get a shot. He was getting a little annoyed, however, since the guards seemed to be somewhat intelligent and were targeting his 'Mech's knees, which were one of the more vulnerable points on the titan's body.

_I figure that the knees will last about forty minutes at this pace, but if they manage to launch some sort of missile at it, I'm going to go down pretty quick._

Then he saw a corps of soldiers with Stinger missile packs.

"Oh, fuck," 008 spat out into his radio.

Bond and Brittney were having relatively little trouble. They had run into a total of three guards and had almost finished setting up the second pack of C4 when suddenly 008's voice came in over their radios. "Oh, fuck. Somebody help me, please."

"Let's go help him!" Brittney said, almost out the door already.

"No! We finish setting up the bomb first. Then we try to help him," Bond commanded.

It was too late. Brittney had already left, not hearing a word Bond had said.

"Fuck," Bond said, finishing to wire the bomb. Then he left to follow after Brittney.

Mike and Kira were having considerable luck. They had already set up both bombs by the time 008's message came in. Since they were already on their way out, they just continued to the exit. That's when a few small squadrons of guards showed up in front of them.

"I knew my bad luck would curse us," Mike moaned.

"_Fermarsi! Discendéte vostro armas!_*" one of the guards shouted.

"Do as he says, calmly," Kira whispered to Mike, "and leave the rest to me."

Mike put down his Beretta slowly, and Kira also put down her gun.

**Fermarsi! Discendéte vostro armas!**: Stop! Lower your weapons!

When the guards were satisfied, Kira drew her second Desert Eagle and emptied an entire clip into the nearest nine guards' heads or chests before the rest were able to respond.

"Okay, that didn't work out like I thought it would," Kira conceded to Mike as she lay down her last weapon.

Will and Jenni's luck was much like Bond and Brittney's so far. As soon as Jenni heard 008's message, she rushed off.

"Better to save Jonathan and get my payment than worry about wiring some damn bomb," she had said before departing.

"If we survive this mess, I'm going to kill that bitch myself," Will muttered to himself, finishing to wire the bomb.

I won't bother telling you how Matteo was doing, because he was already done and taking apart one of the tanks they had left behind, modifying it to fire the missiles that he had taken out of their armory (Oh, whoops. I just told you how he was doing, didn't I?).

PROXY had finished setting up his pack of C4 and was in the process of entertaining himself by frightening a bunch of guards. Having transformed into Iron Man, he went around the facility firing various weapons and then flying around blowing stuff up. That was when one of the guards found a Stinger missile launcher and fired at PROXY.

Fortunately for 008, the men with the Stinger missiles had not targeted weak points, but the points they had targeted were now weaker from the impacts and resulting explosions. He had to target way too many infantry for it to be worth the fight, and they had backed him into a corner with their vehicles.

_I have to get out of here fast or I'll be toast._ 008 decided to just blow up a few vehicles to clear his escape path a little before going on, because if he stepped on the vehicles, the fuel tanks exploding might damage his armor. He had just targeted the trucks in front of him when the entire 'Mech shook and part of the right leg's armor went critical on his monitor.

Meanwhile, Bond and Brittney had run into Will and Jenni, almost literally, and then all four of them actually ran into three platoons of guards fully equipped for combat.

They had no choice but to lay down their weapons.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 11

Italy

Milan

00:23:38

For everyone except Matteo, the situation looked pretty grim. Bond, Britney, Will, Mike, Kira, and Jenni had been surrounded by guards and were being taken to the prison, PROXY had been shot down, and 008's 'Mech was about to lose almost all the armor on the right leg.

Matteo heard some squawking from one of his pockets. It was the radio that he had been equipped with for the operation.

"Oh, I forgot I had that in there," Matteo said, opening the pocket.

"Matteo, where are you when I need you?" 008's irate voice came out, "I'm about to lose my right leg! I won't be getting this thing back to you in one piece if that happens, and some of your technology might be found and analyzed!"

"Now that last part would be bad," Matteo said to himself before coming on to the radio. "Listen up, Jonathan. I want you to high-tail it out of there. That thing can do nearly sixty, and the best any infantry or tanks can do is about thirty five, and that's the tanks. Once you're clear of all them, you'll only really have to worry about the jeeps. Those things only have machine guns, anyways. I'll go out there in this tank I've been modifying and blow them up. I'll also stop and make some field repairs to Alex's armor, and then I want you to go help the guys in the building. I think they might need it."

"Got it," was the only thing he got as a reply.

"Some people can't figure out how to do anything," Matteo sighed as he started up the tank.

Bond, Brittney, Will, Mike, Kira, and Jenni were all in cells at the moment, having been captured by the guards. They had also been stripped of all weapons, and had no means of opening the cell doors. The guards had been efficient, too, getting their radios and turning them off, since they were smart enough to figure the attack and the invaders were linked.

"So, great job, everybody. We've been captured and pretty much condemned to death," Jenni said.

"I knew my horrible luck would mess up this operation," Mike complained.

"Want some cheese with that whine?" Will asked.

"We aren't condemned to death yet," Bond insisted, "They'll want to interrogate us first."

"Don't give up hope yet. 008 will come through, or PRO–" Kira began to say.

Then the guards dragged in PROXY, whose right arm had been blown off.

"I'm sorry, masters, but I can't go on. I've lost my right arm, and it would seem that the impact of the missile has erased my primary protocols," PROXY said as he was taken to a cell. "I'm useless, just leave me here to die."*

"Yeah, I don't think I want to go through the interrogation process, so I'll just take the death route like PROXY," Brittney said.

As soon as 008 heard what Matteo said, he launched a few salvos of missiles to try and clear the way a bit, then switched to the machine guns for the rest of the way out. Starting up from a dead start was always slow, but when he got going, there was no stopping him.

When he was clear of everything and the guards were just starting to pursue, he turned Alex's torso around and started pumping the vehicles behind him with lead, still moving forwards with the legs. You have to give him some credit, because it's hard to pilot a 'Mech when you're technically going backwards.

Once he got clear of the city's limits, he turned back around and simply ran away. About five minutes later, he ran into Matteo and his…tank

"Matteo, what the hell did you do to that thing?" 008 asked over his radio.

"I added a bunch of heat-seeking missiles to it. I think there's about forty to a side."

"All right, what about those field repairs you promised me?"

"Oh, yeah. Just a sec." Matteo pulled some sheets of metal out of his coat pocket and welded them together. After he had four panels with about five layers of inch-thick steel, he brought them up and welded them to the 'Mech and then to each other.

"Just be glad that it was the middle of the leg and not one of the joints," Matteo commented.

"Trust me, I'm more than glad," 008 replied, starting off towards the Quantum building.

Matteo went off to have some fun with his new toy. _Hmmm. I think I'll call this one…Yoichi._*

Bond and the rest were in holding cells, waiting for something to happen when suddenly they heard the low bass rumble of Alex's footsteps coming closer to the building. The next rumbles, however, were of missiles striking the walls, and one wall collapsing.

Then they heard a sound from the 'Mech that they had not heard before. It had a low bass rumble, but also some very high overtones, and looking out the window in his cell, Bond saw the blue artificial lightning of the PPCs firing. He wasn't able to see just what they hit, but he did see the rubble falling from the wall that they had just devastated.

"Guys, 008 is here to rescue us," Bond said.

"Really? And how would you know that?" Jenni asked sarcastically. "Got a window in that cell of yours that you can see him?"

"Actually, yes, I have a window, but I can't see him."

"Then how do you know it's Jonathan?"

"I see Alex."

"Alex? Who's Alex?"

"The 'Mech that 008 is driving. Its name is Alex."

"Oh! Where is he?"

"Right now, he's just entering the building."

"How? That thing's way too big to get inside a door."

"He brought down a wall."

008 drove the lumbering Mad Cat towards the building. Once it was in range, he fired a salvo of missiles at the building. "Knock, knock," he said as they hit, reducing one wall to dust. Then he fired the PPCs. As the blue of the artificial lightning struck the building, another wall was reduced to dust and there was a hole large enough for him to get inside with Alex.

Entering the hole, he encountered countless racks of missiles, live ammunition, grenades, and the rifles, pistols, and machine guns capable of firing all the ammunition in the room.

"One bad shot and I could vaporize this entire building as well as myself and the rest," 008 muttered to himself.

Backing out of the hole, 008 decided to clear the surrounding area before opening the cockpit and climbing out. It was a long way down, and 008 was just glad he knew where the good handholds on the Mad Cat's legs were, because Matteo hadn't installed a ladder yet.

Continuing on foot, 008 decided to grab some more weaponry before going to rescue the others. After all, he didn't want to be fighting each and every guard with his bare hands (he had left all his weapons at their temporary base since he thought he was going to be in the 'Mech the whole time). Grabbing a Franchi SPAS 15 shotgun and two MP5Ks, he slung the SPAS 15 across his back and grabbed a couple of clips for it, putting them onto an ammo belt. He also grabbed a few extra clips for the MP5Ks and put those on the ammo belt.

Having thus equipped himself, 008 turned around and started towards the prison block. The few guards he encountered on the way offered little resistance to him, and he made good time. He checked the time on his watch. It was 00:48.

"Shit. Twelve minutes left," 008 muttered to himself, remembering that the bombs were set to go off at 01:00. "I knew we should have done the remote detonation option like last time."

He arrived at the prison block with eight minutes left. "Come on," he said while shooting the locks on the cells open, "we've got eight minutes before this place is a bunch of radioactive dust."

008 arrived in the prison block relatively later than Bond had hoped. His words while shooting the locks were also far from reassuring.

"Come on, we've got eight minutes before this place is a bunch of radioactive dust."

"We need to get our weapons!" Kira shouted. "Over here in the lockers!"

008 shot the lockers open, and they grabbed their weapons and equipment.

Then they ran.

About halfway to the 'Mech, 008 ran out of MP5K ammunition and switched to the Franchi, ditching the MP5Ks. Bond was surprised, because he never thought that 008 would be one for brute force, instead marking him as a stickler for accuracy and long distance sniping.

Once they reached the Mad Cat, 008 started clambering up with a rope ladder, which he dropped down to the rest once inside the cockpit.

"Surely you don't expect us all to fit in there, do you?" Will asked speculatively.

"It's the only way we're going to get out of here in one piece, so hurry up and climb. We've got two minutes."

They all got up to the cockpit, and 008 started the gargantuan machine up.

"One minute thirty seconds," Bond reminded 008 as they turned around.

It was a good thing 008 didn't try to close the cockpit, because otherwise t would have been so crowded that he wouldn't be able to operate the 'Mech. He started moving when suddenly they saw Matteo's tank on the horizon, heading towards them.

It looked like maybe Matteo had bitten off a little more than he could chew, because he was being pursued by the guards that had survived 008's barrage and Matteo's initial attack. When they passed Matteo, suddenly he jumped out of his tank and latched onto Alex's leg.

"Keep going!" he shouted as he started clambering up.

When they had gotten about a mile away from the building, it blew up. Violently. 008 had some trouble keeping Alex upright as the internal gyros struggled to maintain balance against the powerful shock waves. Once he got Alex to a nice, level stretch of ground, he shut the 'Mech down.

They waited for the flames to die down, like after the last raid.

Italy

Milan

07:34:19

"So what happened out there?" Jacob asked, since he had not participated in the night's activities. "I noticed that the building you targeted was reduced to rubble sometime overnight, and you've all returned, so I assume that you guys were successful."

"Well, yes and no. We were successful, but if not for the timely intervention of 008, some of us wouldn't be alive and present right now," Bond said.

"And if not for Matteo, I wouldn't have been there to intervene, although you guys might have been saved by him," 008 said, entering the room having just woken up. "By the way, can you guys keep it down a bit? Your talking is what woke me up, and the rest are still a bit jetlagged from the trip."

"What? That was four days ago!"

"Yeah, well I don't know why, they just are."

In truth, Jenni had been going to the brothels every night to catch some action and had not gotten much sleep the past few nights.

Suddenly, one of the monitors they had borrowed from Jacob started beeping, indicating that it had intercepted a message.

"Well, they won't be getting much more sleep now," Bond commented. "We need them to help us do the triangulation to find this place. Do you mind waking them up, 008?"

"Sure."

While 008 went off to wake the others up, Bond got the times for receiving the message from the computer. Reading the message, he laughed.

"They're looking for 'a group of anywhere from ten to two hundred people who have guns, tanks, artillery, and at least one giant robot that is seemingly indestructible'," he said to Jacob.

"I don't think they'll ever find you guys with that kind of description," Jacob responded.

"It'll be pretty hard," Bond agreed.

008 walked back into the room with the rest of them and they got to work triangulating the position of the Quantum headquarters. After an hour of grueling work, they came up with a location.

"So where is it?" Mike asked.

"Well, according to this, it's in…" 008 started to say.

"Why are you pausing? We want to know where it is!" Will said impatiently.

"Well, this says that it's in England, but there's no place with that kind of elevation in England."

"What do you mean?" Bond asked.

"Well, it's situated about 250 feet below sea level, and it's almost directly under the center of Nottingham."

"There's no way they could have missed that while digging for foundations, so it has to have been built as a shaft directly underneath a Quantum-owned building before they could have started expanding it," Brittney said.

"That's precisely what I was thinking. So it's probably been built within the last ten years, because otherwise their digging techniques wouldn't really be sophisticated enough to be able to get rid of that amount of material. Also, they would have to have some sort of other entrance that's been covered up by another building, like a house, because otherwise it wouldn't be private enough," 008 concluded.

"Raccoon City," Mike said rather suddenly.

"What?" Will asked. "There is no such place."

"No. Raccoon City. From the Resident Evil® games and movies. The Hive was located underneath Raccoon City, and it had a tunnel leading to a place directly underneath a secluded house, where they had two agents stationed to prevent anybody from finding the entrance. It was also to prevent an outbreak of the T-Virus."

"Looks like we've found an expert on how to navigate the Quantum base," Jenni joked.

"Just because I'm familiar with the idea doesn't mean I know the layout like the back of my hand," Mike shot back.

"Well, it would seem we're off to Nottingham," 008 said. "Care to join us?" he asked Jacob.

"Nah, I think I'd prefer not having to worry about dying. Besides, Milan is pretty nice."

"I'd like to stay here, too," Will said. "After all, I can get a lot from the casino, and then I can go back to Austria."

"Yes, but you wouldn't be able to participate in any firefights we get into," 008 said, playing his trump card.

"Oh, all right," Will said.

"I think Jenni should leave us now," Brittney offered.

"No, I want to delay my paying her for as long as possible, so she will be staying with us," 008 said firmly.

"Yay, I get to spend more time with Jonathan!" Jenni squealed.

"Well, it looks like we're all going, then," Kira concluded.

**A/N** This is a direct reference to PROXY's line in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed after Starkiller has brought down the Imperial Star Destroyer into the Mass Driver Cannon.

**A/N 2 **Eyeshield 21 reference


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 12

England

London

Universal Exports Headquarters

13:47:48

M was in her office when suddenly Moneypenny came in on the intercom.

"Yes, Moneypenny, what is it?" she asked.

"M, it's 008 calling with an update."

"Oh. Put him on," she said. "Yes, Steele? How is the mission coming? It's unlike you to be so irregular with your mission updates, or to take so long on one mission."

"Yes, I know," 008 said over the phone. "We're currently in Nottingham, about to begin planning our strike on the Quantum headquarters."

"Quantum? Remember, 008, your last update was before you even hit anything in Italy."

"Sorry, I forgot. When we hit the contact in Italy, we found out that we were dealing with a global organization called Quantum, which was borne from the ashes of Spectre nearly 20 years ago. We then found out that there was a money exchange due in Japan in three days, so we headed there and put a harmless radioactive tracer on the money. Since then, we've been to Russia, Austria, the United States, and back to Italy, hitting Quantum bases of operations and spiking their communications."

"Is 014 there with you? We stopped receiving his periodic transmissions a while ago."

"Yes, ma'am. We needed the extra help, so we recruited him. Sorry about that. Felix Leiter has also been assigning us CIA agents as we went along ever since our contact in Britain tagged along when she wasn't supposed to."

"Just how many agents do you have in that group, and who are they? Codenames, mind you, 008."

"Ah, let me see. We've 007, myself, and 014, then we've got White Knight, Kita Chōsen, and White Bishop, from the CIA, and Athanasia, a freelance agent from Russia. She's former KGB."

"Ah, yes. We have files on all of them. It would seem you've needed quite a bit of help from other countries in this mission."

"Well, they weren't really _necessary_, per se, but Leiter insisted on the American participation, and in Russia, well, we just needed someone with maps, and I'm just trying to delay having to pay her."

"Asked for sex, did she? Well, I'm sure Bond was happy to hear that. Why delay the payment, though? It would have only delayed you by one night, maybe two."

"She didn't want Bond to administer the payment, ma'am."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"She wanted _me_ to 'pay' her."

M was speechless. "Not Bond? That's a surprise," she said.

"My reaction exactly when she said that."

"Well, good luck on your raid, then," M said, hanging up. Then Moneypenny appeared at the doorway.

"Don't ask," M said.

"Don't tell," Moneypenny responded.

England

Nottingham

13:49:51

008 finished giving his report to M, who for some reason hung up rather suddenly. After 008 had hung up on his end of the line, Bond asked how it had gone.

"Well, she was surprised that I hadn't been a bit more routine, and that I wanted more help outside of just you. She was also surprised to hear about Jenni's choice of payees."

"Sounds like M," Bond said.

They turned to the rest of the party, who were all having their lunch. Matteo was trying to stuff the entire platter of food, platter included, into a coat pocket, which he claimed had a refrigerator inside, and Jenni was touching hers as though it was a radioactive substance and complaining to the rest of the group about how much she missed Russian food. When Matteo offered to give her some direct from Russia, though, she refused.

After a half-an hour trip through one of Matteo's coat pockets, though (see chapter 10, pages 3-4 (Overall pages 53-54)), it was understandable.

Helping her overcome that would be very hard indeed.

When they were done with lunch, they started planning their assault on the base. Looking at aerial photographs of the city, they found the building that it was located underneath, and therefore would logically be the one that had an elevator shaft connecting it to the underground structure (temporarily dubbed "The Hive"). They then began scouring the edges of the map for a secluded house that would be particularly fancy or large, which would have the secondary tunnel entrance.

After about an hour of searching, they found four likely places that the secondary entrance could possibly be hidden, using statistics that Mike quoted off from Resident Evil. Labeling them as A through D, they had PROXY, whom Matteo had repaired (minus his primary protocols to kill his master), fly along the tunnel to the house it led to as Iron Man with an aerial scanner Matteo had specifically built to find a tunnel of the dimensions they wanted.

About an hour later, PROXY came back with a picture he had taken of the house. It ended up being a house they had missed in their search because the tunnel ended up being a little longer than they expected. They decided to go in through the tunnel under that house and if at all possible leave through the building in the middle of Nottingham.

That night, they checked out what kind of security the house covering the tunnel's entrance had, and found it was very heavy. There were guards posted around the building, and the doors were all locked with a code to open them.

"From the looks of it, we'll have a bit of a problem just getting inside," 008 muttered to Bond.

"Yes. We'll have a firefight just getting into the front doors, and it will probably only get worse from there." Bond turned to get a better look at the code pad through his binoculars as a guard walked up to it. "I can see him entering the code. It's 5-8-1-9-6-7-2-5-1-5-3-4-4-5-0-8-1-2-6-1."

"Wow," 008 said as he wrote it down. "That's twenty numbers. How much do you want to bet they change it at least once a day operating on a repeating schedule of, say, one week?"

"I'd bet pretty heavily," Will said.

"I wouldn't want to bet against the house on this one," Bond admitted.

"Hahaha. Against the house. Very clever, Mr. Bond," 008 said.

After they were done scouting it out, they headed back to their hotel.

England

Nottingham

08:34:16

"Well," 008 said as he looked up from his breakfast, "tonight we strike. After looking at the security of the entrance and spying on the main doors' entrance code for a week and a half, we're pretty sure we know the schedule, and we're going to need everybody for this operation to even get inside."

"Everybody?" Jenni asked, looking at Mike. "What about the little Asian man's abysmal luck? Do you need _that_ too?"

"From now on you will refer to him by his name, Mike, and yes, we do need him, not because of his luck, but because if it is as he fears, we will need him to be our living map of the facility."

"And if you call me 'the little Asian man' one more time, I will personally rip your head off and feed it to whatever is in that facility," Mike threatened.

"After we've stuffed you in Matteo's coat again," Brittney added.

"And shot you," Will finished.

"Oh, and before I forget, calling anybody by a derogatory phrase halves the payment you'll get. That was twice, so you're down to fifteen," 008 said before going on. "So we'll need everybody to participate to the best of their ability, and then we'll celebrate when we're done and have the Quantum leaders on trial for all they've done."

"Any questions?" Bond asked the group.

They all shook their heads.

"Good. Off to start the operation, then."

England

The Outskirts of Nottingham

21:25:29

"You know, I was just wondering. Why is it we always do our big strikes at night?" Mike asked in the car on their way to the target house.

"I dunno, I just feel like it most of the time," 008 responded from the driver's seat.

Bond was driving the other car, being the only other person in the group with a valid British driver's license. Both the cars, however, were from 008's personal collection, which Matteo had brought from the mansion. 008 was driving his BMW 750, with Kira, Mike, and Will in the car with him. Bond was driving an Audi A4 with Jenni, Brittney, and Matteo in the car with him. They had put Jenni in the back with Matteo, and to keep her quiet, Brittney had told Matteo to stuff Jenni in his coat at the slightest noise from her.

To try to avoid being detected, they were taking two different routes to the house. 008 went to the North of the house and was headed in an easterly direction and would then hook South, while Bond went South, drove far to the East of the house, came back North, and would come West into the house's property line. According to the plan, 008 would arrive approximately half-an hour before Bond would and start picking off the guards with tranquilizer darts. As they had learned from the last operation, however, things wouldn't necessarily go according to plan.

So far, 008's trip was relatively undisturbed. Every once in a while, they would see another car, but otherwise they were alone. Then, all of a sudden, two identical black cars appeared on the road behind them and spread to take up both lanes.

"That's rarely a good sign," Will said, looking backwards.

"Yeah, I know," 008 said.

Then, two men appeared out of the sunroof in each of the black cars holding AK-47s, which they proceeded to aim at them.

"Brace yourselves for some evasive action," 008 warned, and any seat belts that hadn't been buckled suddenly were.

As soon as the men opened fire, 008 started to swerve in the road as though passing cars at a high speed, constantly accelerating. The black cars also sped up, making sure to keep 008 only a short distance ahead. Then the passengers of each of the black cars opened their windows and produced AK-47s, starting to fire.

"Do they have a contract with Kalashnikov or something?" Will asked incredulously.

008 then made a quick turn onto a different road, hoping to shake the pursuers, but they reacted quickly enough to the sudden change in direction that they were able to follow.

"Damn," 008 muttered as he slammed the accelerator down.

Suddenly, they rocketed from only doing 120 to suddenly going over 200. Swerving as much as he could in the narrow lane to avoid the gunfire, 008 tried to tune out all other distractions.

"What the fuck kind of engine does this thing have?" Mike asked, breaking 008's concentration.

"Specially modified V-6," was all 008 dared say back, trying to tune out distractions again.

Bond was having a relatively relaxing trip until suddenly the cars behind him started occupying both lanes and firing at him. Trying to concentrate on not being blown to bits, Bond started driving more aggressively. He asked Brittney to open the panel with the special controls that 008 had shown him earlier.

Opening the panel, Brittney said, "There's only two buttons." She sounded disappointed, but Bond wasn't worrying about it.

"Well, then, press one!"

She chose to press the larger red button. When she pressed it, a Heads-Up-Display (HUD) was projected onto the windshield in front of Bond, and sections of the steering wheel lit up with different colors, and also little labels. Bond scanned the controls quickly to see what options he had.

"Missiles, machine guns, mines, tacks, reinflating tires, oil slicks, smokescreen, wow, 008's got the whole package here," Bond muttered as he looked at the labels.

Then Bond saw a small red button in the center that he hadn't noticed before. The label below it read, "Auto Pilot."

The label alone was enough to pique Bond's interest. He pressed it to see what would happen.

Meanwhile, 008 was having a few problems of his own. Everything he tried to do to shake off his pursuers was failing.

"All right, you guys leave me no choice," he said aloud before pressing the button to reveal the controls.

As soon as the HUD finished loading, he pressed the center button on his steering wheel. Letting go of the wheel and taking his foot off the gas, the car took control of driving for him.

Then 008 pressed the button right beside the one that activated the controls and a panel slid open, revealing what looked like an Xbox controller. 008 took the controller out of the compartment and started it up, since it had no cord. Upon closer inspection, though, Will could see that there were tiny labels engraved into the plastic below each button, stating it's purpose.

Right after 008 started up the remote controller, the car suddenly spun itself around and started driving backwards. When that happened, 008 started ripping the other cars to bits with the machine guns. The two cars didn't take very long to reduce to flaming piles of metal, and 008 started to relax when suddenly three helicopters appeared over the trees.

008 did a quick action on the steering column, which sent the car spinning around so that it was going forwards again. 008 then activated the missiles, which brought a targeting reticule up on the HUD. Will recognized that the HUD was set up a lot like the ones in military planes from his days in the Navy Seals.

The only problem with it was that the helicopters were behind them.

008 was able to fix that problem with another touch to the steering column, however, which started slowing the car down _very_ abruptly.

The helicopters were unable to slow down that quickly, so as soon as they appeared as targets on the HUD, 008 made quick work of them.

When Bond pressed the button labeled, "Auto Pilot," the car suddenly took over, driving itself.

"What the hell?" Bond shouted as he tried to keep the steering wheel straight.

Matteo sighed, then, "Brittney, press the other button, please."

Brittney pressed it, and a panel next to the steering wheel opened up, revealing the same type of controller as the one in 008's car.

"Now take the controller, Mr. Bond, and press the large button in the center."

Bond did as Matteo said, and the car turned itself around to face the other cars.

"Okay, now what?" Bond asked.

"Do I have to explain _everything_?"

"Just tell me what to do!"

"You see the labels on the controller? They tell you what each button is for. As for switching the car's direction, there's a directional pad on the steering column."

Bond looked at the controller and chose to use the missiles on the cars. He pressed the button labeled "Missiles" and then targeted one of the cars using the left of the two joysticks. He then pulled the trigger labeled "Fire Weapon." Two missiles then lashed out at the other car, decimating it upon contact. Targeting the other car, he did the same.

Right as he was launching the second salvo of missiles at the other car, three helicopters flew overhead and the passengers started to fire at Bond.

Bond selected the mortars.

"Why the hell are you using the mortars?" Brittney yelled.

"Because they're above us right now," Bond stated simply.

Bond reached to the steering column and pressed forwards on the directional pad. The car then spun itself around again and sped up.

The helicopters began to follow suit, but Bond swiftly launched mortars at two of them. The mortars struck at the very top of their arc, blowing the two helicopters to bits. The third helicopter pilot was a bit behind the other two and was smart enough to stay a bit higher, just outside the mortars' range.

"Damn. The other one's smarter," Brittney said, shaking her fist.

"Did you try pressing in on the right joystick and then using the joystick to guide the car?" Matteo asked.

"No, why?" Bond asked.

"Because those are the jump jets I installed on the car. Up takes you up, down takes you down, and the sides steer you."

Bond pressed in and then guided the car up. Before the pilot realized what was happening, Bond fired a mortar shell at him and brought the car down again, not very gently. The helicopter blew up, and Bond relaxed.

"Matteo?" Bond asked suddenly.

"Yes?"

"How do I get this thing off of Auto Pilot?"

"Oh, press the button again. It's why I put it in the center, you know, so you wouldn't have to find it."

Bond pressed it and resumed driving. _They really don't want us finding out about their operation. Oh well, at least I got rid of their pursuers._

Or at least, that's what he thought.

**A/N** Universal Exports is the cover company for MI6. All agents are registered as employees at Universal Exports, as well as having their codename and a military rank.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 13

England

Outskirts of Nottingham

21:41:37

"You know, 008," Bond said when they got to the rendezvous point, "for some reason, I don't think they want us here."

"Now what would have _ever_ given you that idea, Mr. Bond? Was it the cars, or the helicopters? Or was it the fact they were shooting at you what gave it away?" a patrolling guard asked. "Come on, get up, and throw all your weapons on the ground."

"If you know my name," Bond said while following the guard's instructions, "then surely you know that I never have assignments in Britain, much less Nottingham."

"Yeah, like I care? I'm just doing my job." The guard then called his compatriots to his location. The group was taken inside the house and put in a room to wait, away from their weapons (and Matteo from his coat).

"Well, at least now we don't have to worry about breaking into the house," 008 said when the door closed.

After about half an hour, they were escorted to an underground chamber with what looked like a train. They were shuttled on, and the train started down a tunnel.

After an hour, they arrived at the end of the tunnel. More guards greeted them there and they were escorted into the main complex of the building.

They passed through so many hallways and elevators that after a while 008 lost track of how to reach the exit. Finally, they arrived at a conference room and they were told to sit down.

**A/N** As it always happens in the Bond movies, Bond gets captured and his enemy tells him all of his plans so that Bond can foil him when he escapes his captors. Therefore, if we are to have a true James Bond fan fiction, this needs to happen. Otherwise, we'll just have some cheap knockoff that doesn't follow the true plot line.

Soon afterwards, a man came into the room wearing a lab coat, followed by a man wearing a white suit.

"Greetings to all of you," the man in the suit proclaimed. "I must admit, I was expecting you here earlier."

"Sorry, but we were delayed by some tailgaters," 008 said before Bond could come up with a witty enough reply.

"Ah, I forget my manners, however. My name is Cooper. Rafael Cooper. And this is my associate, Charles Wykes, who is the head scientist on this project," the man in the suit said.

"What exactly is this project?" 008 asked.

"I was hoping you'd ask that," Rafael said. "My project is to blackmail the entire world. In doing this, I will have become the single most influential person on this planet. Alas, it's true that it has taken me twenty years to do so, but in those twenty years, I made sure that my plan was flawless. You see, there is almost no threat that any country will pay to the point of bleeding to avoid, but in these twenty years, I have managed to discover a few. Do any of you want to wager a guess what my method will be?"

"Nuclear winter?" Bond asked.

"Genetic engineering?" Jenni asked.

"Is it hallucinogens?" Brittney asked.

"No, no, no," Rafael said, laughing. "I am much more sophisticated than any of these crude and obviously flawed methods. Fine, I will give you three more guesses before I tell you."

They thought long and hard about it.

"Bioterrorism?" Mike asked suddenly.

"You are on the correct path, my small Asian friend. What is your name?"

"Mike."

"Well, Mike, since you are so close, care to take another guess?"

"Following that same, yet hopefully insane, train of thought, I'm going to say…the T-virus."

"Well, not necessarily that, but you are so close to the truth I might as well say it aloud. I will threaten the entire world with a sudden release of what I like to call the V-virus. It's slightly less deadly than the T-virus, because it can't be spread, but it will mutate and work it's way up the chain. Once the infected people can infect others, it will officially be called the T-virus. It will still escalate from there, going through the stages of P, G, E, D, C, and then the most deadly, the B stage. In the end, I believe it averages out to be the D-virus overall, so that's what I will end up calling it in my broadcast."

"You're planning on releasing something like that upon the entire world?" Bond asked incredulously.

"Oh, only to the countries that don't pay the price."

"You realize that this will eventually spread to the entire world anyways, right?" 008 pointed out.

"Oh, but I've got a plan for that. The countries would also have to pay for the formula that I have for the antidote."

"Have you ever seen the Resident Evil movies or games? Anything above the T-virus and we'll all be killed!" Mike shouted.

"It's not everyone else in the world I'm worried about, it's me. As long as I'm safe, I'm fine with it."

"You're crazy! You can't possibly believe that you'll be perfectly safe forever!"

"The other thing is," 008 said thoughtfully, "once everyone else is dead, you'll have absolutely no use for the money, so what point is there in getting all the money in the first place?"

"An excellent question. I do have an answer, however. Those who will be infected will be quarantined to a very special place that they won't be able to get to us from, and that is what I'll be using the money for. I will build a station on the moon and send all of the infected people there. The only way there would be a space shuttle, and they'll be infected as they leave the shuttle. Those countries that pay the price could also send their criminals there, for a fee. In one swift stroke, I will become the single richest man in the world, and all crime and poverty will be wiped from the planet, to be slowly eradicated!"

"What if someone who's been infected happens to get onto a returning space shuttle?"

At that point in time, Rafael looked like he had been defeated. He cocked an eyebrow as though he didn't understand. Then a grin spread across his face, breaking into a maniacal smile. He started laughing hysterically and then stopped rather suddenly.

"No, no, no. You see, it will be an automated craft. It will fly there on its own and then when the subjects are taken off of the craft, it will fly to a remote area in space and detonate itself. It's foolproof!"

Rafael smiled with his victory, then said, "So, Jenni, you are no longer of any use to us, so you get the honor of being eliminated first."

He led Jenni outside of the room, followed by Charles. Suddenly, his voice came on over the intercom system in the room and a TV turned on. "Now you can see your 'comrade' become the first non-experimental victim of my new virus."

They watched as she was injected with the virus. "It will take about ten minutes for it to completely take over her body. Then it will begin to mutate at about one level per week, with the exception of the T-virus stage, which takes approximately one day."

"Do you plan on doing the same to us?" 008 asked, knowing that the room had hidden microphones.

"No, 008. For the rest of you, I was planning on offering positions in my new organization. Normally, I would have done the same, but you cost me time and resources.* I wanted to see exactly what you were capable of, and I was pleased. You could be my advisors on how to go about things once I have collected all the ransoms."

"Well, I think you can–" Brittney started to say.

"I accept your offer," 008 said suddenly.

"What?" Bond exclaimed. "You can't be serious!"

008 winked at Bond, then said, "I've thought about it, and serving under you could be much more eventful than working for Her Majesty's Secret Service."

"You know, he's right. I accept your offer, too," Kira said, catching on.

"I concur," Will said, also catching on. "As long as I can get my guns back."

Then Brittney said, "I will join you if I can shoot that bitch in there myself."

Mike said, "If Brittney is in, then I'm in too."

Bond couldn't believe that 008 was doing this just to escape from the room and obtain free reign over the facility.

"Fine, if all of them are doing it, I might as well join up too."

"Very good. And of course, I will grant any of the minor requests that you made of me right now," Rafael said happily.

The door was opened, allowing them outside of the room.

They were taken to a room with their weapons (and Matteo's coat) by a laboratory assistant. As soon as 008 saw the way that Bond looked at her, he knew they were in for trouble.

"We'll be losing about a night's worth of progress," 008 whispered to Will.

It took a moment for Will to figure out what 008 meant, but then he saw the lab assistant was female and he understood what 008 meant.

After they had received their weapons, the lab assistant asked, "If there is anything you need, just press the button on these pagers and I will come immediately."

After they had all received their pagers, Brittney asked, "Can you show me to the room where the other person from our party was being held?"

"Certainly," she said. "Follow me."

Once she had left, Rafael came into the room.

"Well, I can see that Brittney is getting her entertainment out of Jenni, so I guess I'll have to show you all to your quarters, since we are in a delicate stage of the planning right now, and all of the other laboratory assistants are too busy to do so."

Rafael showed them to their quarters, which were lavishly decorated, but there weren't enough.

"As you can see, we are a bit short on rooms. So here's how it will work. You guys get to split the rooms up however you all want, and I won't impose any rules on you."

Rafael left, and they started deliberating.

"There are three rooms, and seven of us, so we'll have to have two rooms with two people and one with three," Mike said.

"Thank you for pointing out what we already knew, Mike," Will responded sarcastically.

"Well, I don't really _need_ a room, so we can have just two to a room," Matteo offered.

"What are you going to do instead?" Mike asked.

"Use my coat as a tent."

"Oh. Where?"

"In the hallway."

"Oh. _Now_ I see."

By that time, Brittney had finished her work with what was now the late Jenni's cadaver.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked as she walked up.

"Deliberating how to divvy up the rooms. There aren't enough."

"Well, as long as I'm not in the same room as Bond."

"Actually, I think I'm going to be asking questions tonight, so I won't get back to the room until early in the morning," Bond said.

"Well, I think we all know what _that_ means, so we now have a room that will only have one person," 008 said.

"Well, then, I claim that one," Brittney said immediately.

"Right, then. That brings up the _tiny_ problem that now one of the rooms will have one male occupant and one female occupant," Will said. "Or hadn't you noticed that?"

"I don't give a damn. I want a room to myself, and to hell with your opinions."

"Well, I think I'll take a room with whichever male is left, then," Mike said, "because I'm definitely _not_ going to room with a female. After all, I'm married."

"Really, you're married? I didn't take you for the married man type," Bond said.

"Well, married once, wife died soon afterwards, you know the story. After all, you lived through something like that, too, didn't you, Mr. Bond?"

"Yes…" Bond said, looking sadder than anyone had ever seen him (sadder than even in the movie _On Her Majesty's Secret Service_ right after his wife dies).

"Yeah, and I'm engaged," Will said. "So that leaves 008 and Kira together, because otherwise it would be a little awkward explaining to Heidi what I did on the mission."

"Well, then, it's settled," Brittney said. "End of discussion."

"I still think that–" 008 started.

"008, do you want to end up like Jenni? Because I can arrange that if you'd like," Brittney threatened.

"Your point is well taken. I will not argue any more," 008 said very quickly.

"Good boy. Maybe my lessons will get through your skull after all."

**A/N** This is a _direct_ reference to Dr. No's reply to Bond in Dr. No when they are having dinner together after he has been captured by Dr. No's guards.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 14

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

23:45:37

And so it ended up that 008 and Kira shared a room for the duration of their stay. Meanwhile, Bond was losing a few hours' sleep with the laboratory assistant.

"Well, this was unexpected," Kira said nonchalantly.

"Yes, very," 008 responded, looking around the room. "It would appear that there is only one bed in this room, so I'll use the–"

"No, we'll make do with the bed. No one will have to use the couch. After all, why put a good king size bed to waste by only having one person sleep on it?" Kira asked.

"And I can't just use the couch _why_?" 008 asked uncomfortably.

"Let's put it this way: you'll need the practice for later in life anyways."

008 moaned. "Why did Brittney have to claim a room all to herself?"

008 was hoping that at any moment a lab assistant would walk into the room and proclaim that they were not allowed to have a boy-girl partnership in the room, but then he remembered what Bond was doing.

He moaned again.

"All right, it's late, so let's get some sleep," Kira said, already in the bed.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming," 008 responded, resigning himself to his fate, while at the same time hoping that Kira didn't try to do anything…well, you know, like Bond was doing.

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

08:08:08 (Yes, I felt like doing that.)

When 008 woke up, Kira was still asleep. He got up quietly and showered and got dressed. By the time he had finished that, Kira was awake.

"Shower's free if you want it," 008 said.

"No thanks."

"Just thought I'd offer," he mumbled to himself.

008 walked out of the room to see if any of the rest were awake yet. None of them were out of their rooms, although a few had woken up. He didn't know where Bond was, nor did he want to.

He walked back into the room and sat down, waiting for the rest of the group to wake up. At that time, there was a knock on the door, so 008 went to answer it.

At the door was Charles Wykes, the lead researcher in the project.

"Yes?" 008 said.

"May I come in?"

"Certainly."

"I am here to ask a favor of you and your group. I know that you are not really going to help Mr. Cooper, and I wasn't going to initially. You see, he targeted me because of my knowledge of the T-virus."

"Really? Now you've really got my interest piqued. Please, go on. How did you know I wasn't really going to help Cooper?"

"I was given a basic training in recognizing voice patterns that Mr. Cooper has not undergone. Having listened to your previous sarcasm, I detected similar patterns in your speech, although they were excellently masked," Wykes said. "Please, I have come to ask this one favor of you: destroy this facility and all of the data in it. Mr. Cooper has given me leave for the weekend, so you need not worry about me."

"When is he planning on releasing the virus?" Kira asked, joining the talk.

"He plans on releasing it next week. He is recording the broadcast today, and he will release the broadcast tomorrow. If, a week from tomorrow, he has not heard from any single country, he will release the virus there."

"What about getting to vital places in the facility so that we can destroy it? None of us have security clearance," 008 pointed out.

"I took care of that last night. Mr. Cooper requested that I give you all some small level of clearance so that you wouldn't have to be escorted everywhere, so I took the liberty of upgrading you all to the second highest level, which will get you anywhere except Mr. Cooper's private quarters and his office. No one but Mr. Cooper and myself have that kind of clearance."

"I will do as you ask," 008 said.

"Thank you," Wykes said as he left the room.

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

09:34:15

008 had gathered the entire group inside an empty conference room and was explaining what Wykes had told him. Before starting however, he took the precaution of disabling the speakers in the room, because any speaker can be used as a microphone if the outputs for them are simply switched to the inputs on an amplifier.

"Is that so?" Bond said after 008 told him about the security clearance. "I just happen to have made a useful friend last night who can tell us where all of the important things are."

"Yes, good for you, Bond," Brittney said, shooting him a glare.

"At any rate, we're going to plant bombs today and then get out of here ASAP so we can blow this place," 008 said.

"If we plant bombs in here and the entire place is leveled, what's to keep the ground underneath Nottingham from collapsing?" Will pointed out.

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that," 008 said.

"Matteo, got any suggestions?" Mike asked.

"Well, I _could_ set up a large teleportation device that would leave the important superstructure alone and put the rest in space, but that would take a couple of days, and I would need your help."

"It's better than what I was thinking of," 008 said. "Any objections?"

They all voted to do it.

"All right, then," 008 began. "We'll start setting them up in the low priority zones and we'll work our way up the chain of priority," he said, then asked, "Matteo, are these things going to be small?"

"Define small."

008 knew then that they would be very obvious and large.

"Any chance of hiding them?" 008 asked hopefully.

"We're in the middle of _solid bedrock_. It would take more time than just setting them up and hoping that no one notices."

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

12:30:14

"There's no way that we can just set these up without anybody noticing," Will said, looking at one that Matteo pulled out of his coat.

The black monolith was a full eight feet tall, five feet wide, and six feet deep.

"How many do we have to set up again?" Bond asked.

"At least six to be safe. I'd feel better with eight, though," Matteo responded nonchalantly.

008 thought for a moment. "Matteo, how many air conditioning units do you think they need this far into the earth's crust to keep the place cool?"

"At this depth, the ambient air temperature without AC would be about 120 to 140 degrees, so they'd probably have to have at least twenty-two or so, probably closer to thirty for an operation this big."

"Think we could knock out a couple and then 'replace' them?"

"Sounds feasible. We could just install these at the same time and no one would ask any questions."

"So, Matteo, do you have any means of constructing some miniature EMP blasts?" Kira asked.

Matteo grinned.

"I'll take that as a yes. Okay, so we need to take out all the air conditioning units that Matteo wants us to take out and then offer to repair them so that Rafael doesn't have to send to the surface. Our excuse will be that Matteo was actually designing new air conditioners before joining the secret service."

"I like that idea, but why Matteo?" Mike asked.

"Because Matteo actually looks the part somewhat," Brittney said. "That and you look too dumb to do that kind of stuff."

"Oh, yeah…" Mike said, then he scrunched up his brow. "Wait a second. Did you just insult me?"

"Case in point."

They then looked at a diagram of where the air conditioning units should be that Matteo pulled out of his coat. Matteo circled eight locations, one at each corner of the facility, and said, "These are the locations where they should have the air conditioning units for maximum efficiency."

"All right, then. I say that we plant the miniature EMPs as soon as possible," Will said. "That way we can get out of here as soon as possible."

They decided to place the charges individually and then set them up to detonate at random times throughout the day.

"Look, it's simple," Matteo was explaining. "All you have to do is toss one of these towards the air conditioning unit as you pass by it. Then you walk away and it detonates almost silently an hour later. That way you don't get caught doing anything to the air conditioner."

"Forgive me for sounding daft, but how do we know that it will take out the air conditioner and not something else?" 008 asked.

"They're magnetic. They'll stick to the nearest metal thing. Anyways, they will disintegrate once they've detonated, and there's no carbon scoring, so it'll look like the wiring on the inside just short circuited and blew on its own. Any more questions?"

They all shook their heads.

"Right, then. Since we're one person short due to Jenni's being a useless person who got herself killed, one of us needs to get two," Brittney said without remorse for Jenni.

"I'll do it," Matteo said immediately.

"Why did I _know_ that you would volunteer?"

"Lucky guess?" he offered.

Half an hour later, they all reconvened having done the deed, and waited for the "failures."

**A/N** The Hive is laid out in a hexagonal pattern horizontally with a rhombus shape vertically, giving it eight corners. In the movies, the main computer of the Hive was in the lowest point of the facility, but for the purposes of this fan fiction we'll move that and put the air conditioners there. (It makes things so much easier)


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 15

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

13:10:24

As the air conditioning units failed one by one, 008 could feel the temperature rising.

"Man, it's got to be at least 45 degrees in here," Will commented.

"Yeah, it is. Closer to about 110, though, I'd say," Brittney rebuked.

"I meant Celsius. It equates to 113 of your Fahrenheit degrees."

"Is it my fault that you British folk abandoned the empirical system of measurement that you guys _invented_?"

"I never said anything of the sort"

"Guys, stop bickering. I'm going to find Mr. Cooper and 'comment' on the temperature and ask if there's anything we can do to help." 008 said.

After about fifteen minutes of searching, he found Rafael in one of the labs.

"Ah, good. I was about to try and find you," Rafael said as 008 walked up. "Perchance do any of you know how to repair an air conditioning unit? We've had a few fail."

"I think I could have figured that part out on my own, thanks, but yes, Matteo used to do that before he joined us. Now he's technically my personal mechanic. He should know how to repair industrial sized air conditioning units."

"Thank you! Can you ask him to repair them, please? If the temperature in here rises above 60 degrees (140 degrees Fahrenheit), some of the retaining equipment might fail and the virus will be spread throughout the entire facility."

"Okay, I'll tell him to make it fast."

008 then ran out of the room.

"Fuck. And nobody thought to tell me there was a maximum temperature limit for some of the damned equipment before we came up with this plan why?" 008 said as he ran back to Matteo and the rest.

When 008 got there, Matteo said, "Hey, 008. I was doing some seismic research and found out that this thing is about fifty feet above a magma flow at the lowest point, and that's why the temperature hasn't stopped rising yet."

"_FUCK_! Some of the equipment retaining the virus has a temperature limit of 60 degrees before it starts failing!"

"That could be problematic. See, it's already 56 degrees in here. Shall I put up a temporary heat barrier around the area where they are working?"

"We don't know where they're storing the virus, though, so how about we just start repairing the air conditioning units right now?" Mike asked.

"We could also do that. I'll send out a second team with repair nanobots to go to a second air conditioning unit while the rest of us work on another. That should be enough to at least slow down the temperature's ascent to almost nothing, and then when we're done with the first, I can 'inspect' the work on the other one and set up the second teleportation unit."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Kira asked impatiently.

"I need to get the nanobots out."

While Matteo did that, 008 assigned the two groups. "Okay, Kira and I will go with Matteo, while Brittney, Mike, and Bond go to another unit with the nanobots."

"How do they work?" Bond asked.

"You just unscrew the lid and let them do the rest of the work," Matteo said, pulling out a slender tube that looked like it was filled with a silvery liquid.

"Matteo, that's mercury," Will said, then, "Why wasn't I assigned to a group?"

"I need you to be our liaison to Cooper in case he asks how we're doing. We'll give you a radio so you can ask for updates," 008 responded. "And Will, those _are_ the nanobots."

"Be sure not to use all of it on one unit," Matteo added before he handed the tube to Bond. "I'll still need it for the others."

"Got it," was all Bond said before he left with the others.

Then 008, Kira and Matteo left and Will was alone with a radio, left to his own devices in finding Dr. Cooper.

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

2.5 Degrees Centigrade before complete pandemonium

When they reached the first AC unit, Bond opened the lid on the tube and poured about a fifth of it on the machine. The nanobots immediately swarmed through a crack in the metal casing and disappeared from the sight. Within moments the AC unit was up and running again, and it only took two more minutes until Matteo showed up.

"Good. The rate of ascent has decreased to about a degree every twenty minutes, and not a moment too soon. We only had .7 degrees until this place was just one big test vial for the V-virus," 008 said. "Bond, can you guys go ahead to the next unit and repair it just in case?"

"Yes."

Bond took off running with Brittney and Mike following closely behind. Matteo inspected the wires just to make sure that the nanobots had done their job correctly and then went to work setting up the second teleporter. As with the first, he hooked it into the facility's power supply and made sure that it was on standby before moving on.

Will finally found Dr. Cooper after about ten minutes of searching. The first words out of Cooper's mouth were, "How are they doing?"

"Let me check," Will responded, taking out the radio. "How's it going fixing the AC units?" he said into the radio.

008 responded on the other end. "It looks like there was a power surge that blew out the two that we've seen so far. Just a simple matter of replacing some wires. The temperature is currently a balmy 58.6 degrees and cooling sl–"

Will muted the radio before 008 could say anything more. "They've got two back online. Apparently there was a small power surge or something in the two they've seen so far and it was a simple matter of replacing wires. In other news, the temperature is going down, which is fortunate," Will said to Rafael. "I'll let them say anything else interesting when they're done, though."

"Good. I would hate for this entire facility to become one huge container for the V-virus. I think that I will reward you all with a few days on the surface when we're done here."

"I think we'd all appreciate that after today, sir."

Within an hour, all of the AC units had been repaired and had their corresponding teleportation units set up and set on standby, all of them with the same activation code.

When they had finished, they went to the lab, where Dr. Cooper was trying his hardest to drive Will insane with his questions about their progress.

"Well, are they all fixed?" he asked as soon as they arrived.

Matteo responded before anybody else could say anything. "Yes, Dr. Cooper. All eight of the failed AC units have been repaired. They all had the same problem, which was severed wiring due to a power surge earlier today. The wiring was unable to compensate for the excess power. I have replaced the broken sections of wiring and next to each of the failed units I have placed a surge protector of sorts."

"What do you mean by 'a surge protector _of sorts_?'" Dr. Cooper asked.

"It is only activated in the case of a power surge, and what it does is that it redirects the excess current to capacitors which then release it over a long period of time as a trickle. It also has a function which allows it to release large amounts of power during a dearth, such as a power outage. It also has a built in generator in the case of the reserves running out. There is almost no chance of the air conditioning units being burnt out by a surge any more."

"By 'almost no chance,' you mean that the only chance of that happening is if the unit were to fail?"

"That is correct."

Cooper then promised them a day off on the surface in the near future and sent them away.

"Well, now all that remains is for us to get out of here and transport the entire place," Will said with a smile.

"Not really. I don't know if just the regular signal will be able to travel through 250 meters of rock,' Matteo said.

"Do we need to set up an amplifier for the signal?" Bond asked.

"Not necessarily," Matteo said, pulling out an aerial view map of Nottingham. "All we need is a large metal structure that can amplify the signal for us."

"How about a Ferris wheel?" Mike suggested. "You know, like in that Dr. Who episode. What was it called?"

"Rose. And no, we couldn't use that, it would beam the signal horizontally and we need something that would beam it vertically."

They all thought of what they could use that sat horizontally to the ground for a moment before Brittney broke the silence, pointing to the map.

"I've got it. We can use the top of this building, which is round and domed, with the concave side downwards."

"What would we use as the transmitter, though?" 008 challenged.

"It's a hotel. That is the grand ballroom, which has a chandelier," Bond said.

"How do you know that?" Kira asked.

"I happen to have vacationed there once."

"Getting back to the subject," 008 said, "we can use this building as our antenna to go through 250 meters of solid bedrock"

"Right. Now the only thing we need to do is get out of here and send the signal," Mike said.

"Great, Mike, you probably jinxed us by saying that, especially with your luck," Brittney said teasingly.

Little did they know that she was right.

Nottingham

250 Meters below Nottingham

18:32:16

At the end of the ordeal, they decided to ask Rafael if they could take the next day on the surface as soon as he was done for the day. As soon as the break at 18:30 began, they went to find him.

"Hey, Dr. Cooper, we were wondering if we could take our day on the surface tomorrow," Bond said conversationally.

"Why tomorrow?" he asked.

"Well, we sort of wanted to take our day off before we release the virus, just in case England doesn't pay their fair share."

"Well, that seems like a perfectly reasonable request, but you can't all go on the same day. How about we split you into two groups and you guys can go on two days."

"How about we split it with 4 of us on one day and 3 on the next day?"

"Sounds good. How about we go with you, Bond, Matteo and Kira tomorrow and Will, Mike, and Brittney the next day?"

"Sir, can I request that Matteo be switched with Mike?"

"Why?" Cooper protested. "I see no problem with it."

"Well, sir, it's just that I question Mike's safety when he's with Brittney sometimes."

"Come, now. Isn't that what Will is for?"

"Actually, sir, I'm more likely to join Brittney than protect Mike," Will said, catching on to what 008 wanted.

"Well, then, I guess we could switch Bond and Mike," Cooper suggested.

"No, sir, I'm afraid that I don't get along the best with Brittney," Bond said.

"Yeah, and between the two, I'm too torn to decide which to support, so I'd just sit back and watch," Will chimed in cheerfully.

"Fine. You win. Tomorrow it will be Matteo with Will and Mike and then the rest of you the day after tomorrow," Cooper said after a moment's consideration.

"I forgot to mention that I don't feel very comfortable when I'm not with Matteo, and neither is Kira or Brittney," 008 said, trying to get Matteo to be in the second group.

"I don't feel comfortable when I'm not around – ugh!" Brittney said when Bond elbowed her very hard. "Ow! That hurt, you fucking–"

"Sorry, I had a spasm," Bond said innocently.

"Spasm, my ass," Brittney muttered to herself. "Anyways, since when do I – oof!"

Bond had elbowed her again.

"What the hell was that for?"

"Sorry, I had another spasm," Bond said, seriously this time.

"Sir, I seriously think that it should be Bond with Mike and Will on the first day and then Kira, Brittney, Matteo, and myself on the second day. That way we avoid any major ego struggles," 008 recommended.

Cooper thought for a moment, then said, "Well, I guess you do know this group a bit better than I do, so I will let you all go in that order. My only stipulation is that neither of the groups is on the ground at the same time."

"Yes, sir. I guarantee that neither of the groups will be on the ground at the same time. You have my word or my head," 008 said.

"I may just hold you to that," Cooper warned.

The group walked away from Cooper in silence.

"What did you mean by that? '_Neither group will be on the ground at the same time_?'" Brittney complained once they got back to their rooms. "It's physically impossible to pull off our mission now, no thanks to you!"

"Quiet down! We haven't checked for bugs yet!" 008 chided.

"No bugs," Matteo said, holding an evil looking instrument in his hands.

"Right. Now what were you saying?" 008 said calmly.

Brittney looked angry enough to ward off an entire army of T-virus infected zombies. And that isn't very easy to pull off, considering that T-virus infected zombies have just enough brain power to walk towards living people and bite them. They just don't have the capacity for fear.

"I believe Brittney is having some trouble figuring out just how you plan on getting all of us out of here alive with that plan of yours," Will said. "Personally, I don't see how, either."

"Let's see here. Unless I'm mistaken, there are only two ways out of here, and they consist of an elevator and a train. And there is only one of each, at that. So, yes. Please explain how you plan on doing this without breaking the laws of physics, although I'm sure that Matteo can do that," Mike said.

"Look, it's really quite simple," Bond said. "It was in his wording. His exact words were 'that neither of the groups is _on the ground_ at the same time'".

"Yes, and just how do you expect us to get to the hotel unless we're on the ground at the same time?" Brittney said, having calmed herself…mostly. She was still shooting glares at 008 that would have made Hitler have some second thoughts about invading anything at all.

"Brittney, do you have any idea why I was campaigning so hard to have Matteo in the _second_ group?" 008 asked wearily, his forehead in his hand.

"So that he can teleport you guys out of here. But I still don't see how – oh," she said, suddenly realizing 008's plan. "You aren't going to…no. You wouldn't."

"Yes, he would. He's going to teleport us straight to the roof of the hotel. He loves technicalities," Kira said.

"Right. So tomorrow at 18:00:00 Brittney, Kira, Matteo and I will gather here and Matteo will teleport us to the roof of the hotel. From there we can install the device and beam down the signal to the teleportation units. From there it's mission over and on to the debriefing," 008 said triumphantly.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this kind of stuff…" Will muttered to himself.

"Don't worry. After this mission you shouldn't have to worry about it," Mike consoled him.

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

17:35:24

008 was waiting outside his room for the appointed time to leave when a lab assistant came to him.

"Yes, what is it?" 008 asked.

"Dr. Cooper would like to speak with you privately for a moment. Please follow me."

She went off, and 008 followed, considering his options. He could either talk to Dr. Cooper and hope that it was quick, or he could try and just lose the lab assistant and get back to his room. He decided to go with the first option, seeing as it would look suspicious if he suddenly disappeared from the facility.

When they reached Dr. Cooper's office, the lab assistant ushered him in and closed the door behind him.

"Please sit down," Dr. Cooper said. "I won't keep you long."

"So what is it you wanted to speak with me about, Dr. Cooper?" 008 responded, sitting down.

"I was just curious about how you got to be one of the top agents in the British Secret Service at such a young age. I mean, surely they don't accept minors."

"Well, actually, I went in as part of their future agent training team, and I was so good that they decided to enlist me as an agent. I was just a bit-part person, doing security detail, and the plan was that I would continue doing that until I was no longer a minor."

"Well, what happened that they changed their minds?"

"The former 008 was assigned to my station. I knew the details of his mission, and my orders were to assist him in any way necessary. I was actually just an assistant of the agent at that station, but as 008's mission progressed, that agent was killed in the line of duty. 008 then made me his primary liaison for information and the such. The mission was going well, but then, three weeks later, everything suddenly went to hell.

"008 was killed by the man he was supposed to hunt down. My orders from 008 were to assist him in any way necessary, and the day after, a note suddenly appeared under my doorway, from 008. I figured that it was his dying order, or an order to me in the case of his death that he had written beforehand. When I opened it up, it said one thing. "Please finish my mission."

"And you did just that?"

"Yes. The next day, I went in to that man's lair and demanded to see him. The guards thought I was joking, but they showed me around anyways. We were walking through a hallway when we crossed the path of that man. He asked the guards what they were doing with a young boy in tow, and the guards said they were just showing me the way out, because I had wandered in and then I got lost. He then turned to me and smiled, and reached out to shake my hand.

"I took the opportunity to use the poisoned ring I had equipped myself with for the scenario. I shook his hand, at the same time pricking his hand with the needle on the ring. The guards then showed me out, and half an hour later, that man was dead and I had completed 008's mission for him.

"At the debriefing, M, my direct superior, couldn't believe it. He immediately assigned me the position of 008, due to my invaluable contribution to their efforts in that region. The group that that man had controlled immediately fell to pieces in the chaos that reigned in his absence, and it was a simple matter to clean up the mess."

"And how old were you?"

"I was fourteen at the time."

"Amazing. Simply amazing," Cooper mused. "And you've been doing this job ever since?"

"Until I joined you, yes. As of that point, I technically became a defector, as did everybody helping me," 008 said, eyeing his watch. It was 17:58:54. "I'm afraid that I'll have to go very soon, as I promised Kira that I would show her some of the skills I've learned since we last saw each other for an appreciable amount of time."

"Oh, I just had a few more questions. It shouldn't take that long."

"Shoot," 008 said.

"How old are you now?"

"18. My birthday was just a couple of weeks ago."

"How long have you known Kira?"

"As long as I can remember."

"Finally, why did you decide to join me? I mean, you had all of these things going for you, and then you took a huge cut to our salary for a little while, not to mention having to disappear from the world as you know it for a week and a half."

"It was either join you or die, the way I saw it. There's not really that much to explain."

"You could have promised to forget everything and I would have let you go."

"I didn't know whether or not you'd give me that option. You see, when it comes down to life or death, I'm very practical."

"I see. Well, that is all that I really wanted you for. Thank you for your time. I will see you again tomorrow morning when you leave," Rafael said, holding out his hand.

"I wouldn't do that after hearing my story just now. Especially since you still don't know me well enough to completely trust me," 008 said.

"You don't have any rings on right now," Rafael commented.

"True enough. Until tomorrow, then?" 008 said, shaking his hand.

"Until tomorrow," Cooper agreed, returning the gesture.

008 then walked out of the room calmly, and then broke into a run as soon as he was out of sight of Cooper. He knew the route back to his room, fortunately. Unfortunately, Matteo was known for being a stickler for time except when Alex was hungry, and it was now 18:04:35. 008 picked up his speed.

When he rounded the corner to his room, he saw Kira and Brittney.

"Where's Matteo?" he asked, breathless from the run.

"We were just about to ask you that."

"Maybe he had to feed Alex," 008 said hopefully.

"Indeed I did," Matteo said, popping up behind him.

"Oh, good. Are you all ready?" 008 asked Kira and Brittney.

They nodded their heads.

"Right. Let's go, Matteo."

England

250 Meters below Nottingham

18:01:48

After 008 had left his office, Cooper summoned two heavily armed troopers.

"008 was right. I shouldn't trust him," Cooper muttered to himself. He then turned to the troopers, saying, "I want you to alert your plainclothes units on the surface to look out for any of them and detain them on the spot. They are to then take them back down here on the grounds that their time on the surface has to be cut short. If they have any other questions, tell them that it's because an emergency has come up. At the same time, I want you two to go to 008 and his friends and detain them also. Do you understand?"

The troopers both saluted, then left the room.

"Let's see you do anything from down here," Cooper then said to himself.

England

Nottingham

18:09:56

Bond, Mike, and Will had enjoyed their time on the surface, but now it was back to business. They made their way toward the hotel that they were supposed to meet the others at confidently, but cautiously. 008 had warned them to look out because Dr. Cooper might have stationed people on the surface to watch them.

About three blocks from the hotel, they were stopped by a couple of people.

"Excuse me, but we were assigned by Dr. Cooper to come fetch you. There's been a problem in the lab and he needs your help. Can you please come with us?"

"Yes. We just need to stop by that hotel over there and cancel our reservations for the night before we go back," Bond said.

"We can do that for you."

"I'd prefer to just do it now, since we're only three blocks away, and it's on our way to your building," Bond responded.

"All right, but we'll be waiting right outside the hotel for you guys, so make it fast."

"I understand perfectly.

008, Kira, Brittney, and Matteo appeared on the roof of the hotel and quickly made their way to the main ballroom of the hotel, which was on the second floor. In the ballroom, Matteo started setting up the signaling device while the other three started guarding the entrances and waiting for Bond, Will, and Mike.

"Matteo, how long?" 008 asked.

"Just give me a few minutes. I've almost got it done," Matteo responded tersely.

"008, do you think the holograms we posted down there will fool them?" Brittney asked.

"As long as they don't try to grab at them, it should work."

It was at that time that Bond came in with Mike and Will.

"Bond, you look flustered. What is it?"

"Cooper sent some men up to fetch us. Some sort of emergency down in the lab. They're waiting outside for us."

"Right. Matteo, do you have three more holoprojectors that I can program to look like Bond, Mike, and Will?"

"Sure," Matteo said, tossing three objects out of his coat.

The holoprojectors were metal objects with three legs for stability and movement capabilities. The legs had rubber feet so that they didn't make metallic noises on hard surfaces. 008 quickly programmed in some basic speech patterns and visual images for Bond, Will, and Mike. He then released them to the rest of the world at large.

"You are now on your way down to the lair of the enemy," 008 said, "but you are still here. Don't you love advanced technology?"

"At times. At other times, I hate it," Mike said.

Everybody ignored Mike and kept working.

"Got it," Matteo said.

008 walked up to the contraption and pressed the only button.

"Sir, we have apprehended those on the surface," Rafael heard through the radio. He smiled. "You see, 008, I took your advice. I decided not to trust you all and hold you prisoner down here."

"You'll never get away with this, Cooper," 008's hologram said, although Cooper couldn't tell that it wasn't 008.

"Oh, yes, I will. Not only that, but I will kill you all, too. I think that the air conditioning fiasco yesterday was planned by you guys somehow. I don't know how you pulled it off, but you did, and then when you found out about the "temperature limit" you went crazy and fixed them. There was no temperature limit. I knew that this place was fifty feet above a magma pool when I built it. You think I didn't account for the possibility of the air conditioning failing?"

He then walked up to 008's hologram to slap its face gently, but his hand passed right through it.

"And now you've fallen into my trap," 008's hologram said.

And suddenly there was no oxygen for Cooper to respond as all of the contents of his underground laboratory were teleported into outer space.

England

London

MI6 Headquarters

12:19:27

008, Bond, Will, Kira, Brittney, Mike, M, and Felix Leiter (Matteo had gone back to 008's mansion) were gathered in the debriefing room. 008 had forbidden everybody from telling M or Felix Leiter about Matteo.

"Well? Let's have it," M said.

"Yeah. I want to know what happened myself, since I stopped receiving periodic updates," Leiter agreed.

"Well, ma'am," 008 began, "You both know the story up until we left America, at which point we had stopped picking up extra helpers, so I'll start there…"

They then took turns describing what had happened in summary format, taking great pains to omit Matteo or any of his devices, and answering the occasional question. When they finished, M and Leiter had just one predictable question.

"What did you do with the virus?" they asked almost simultaneously.

"I am working on sending it and the containers that it occupies into space, to completely eradicate the virus. I have already burned Dr. Cooper's research notes," 008 responded.

"In a very past tense sort of way," Brittney scoffed.

"_Brittney_," 008 hissed, but it was too late.

"What do you mean by that, White Knight?" Leiter asked.

"All of the virus is already in space. He sent it up on the last day of the mission."

"How?"

"I teleported it. No more questions, or else you will be invading my privacy," 008 said quickly. He punctuated his sentence visibly by drawing his gun. "And I don't like it when that happens," he added in a warning tone.

That ended the debriefing.

Afterwards, 008 caught up with Felix Leiter.

"Felix, there's something I promised you back in Italy (see Chapter 2)."

"Oh, yeah. About taking White Knight and turning her into a worthwhile agent. Don't bother summarizing it. White Bishop told me already."

"And?"

"Next time you see her, it will be White Queen that you call her. And Kita Chōsen will be in a better assignment, too. I think something behind a desk might be good for him."

"Actually, I was thinking of something with a casino nearby. I kind of taught him how to gamble strategically on the roulette table (see Chapter 9)."

"Okay, I'll do that. A good steady income is better than nothing, after all. I'll just remind him that a quarter of what he makes will always go to us."

England

A Street Café in London

16:24:11

008 and Kira were sitting at a table waiting for their order to come in.

"Well, what did you think of the mission?" 008 asked.

"I think that it went as well as possible considering the circumstances and that–"

"Before you say anything else, let me remind you that this is not a debriefing. I am asking you as a friend, not a superior," 008 interrupted.

"Fine. It went well. You lost some of your cars, but you successfully completed a mission. At the same time, you were also able to develop more of a sense of teamwork in a mission instead of what you usually do, which is just to complete the mission by yourself, as quickly as possible,' Kira responded. "It was good for your personal growth, Jonathan."

"Well, I've never taken down an entire global organization before."

"While that may be true, you wouldn't have been able to do it by yourself."

"Okay, you win. But there's still a subject that I wanted to ask you about."

"What is it?"

"We don't see each other enough, and my house is way too big for me, Matteo, PROXY, and the servants. I was thinking that maybe you could move in and occupy another one of the wings?"

"You know, you could just rent it out?"

"Yes, but I'm concerned that the tenants may see things that they really shouldn't see. There are certain things in the Northwest wing that…well they're advanced a couple of years from normal human technology, and if someone were to get their hands on something in that room, then all of the human race could be doomed, and…" 008 said, unable to think of how to finish the statement and make it still sound serious.

"For example?" Kira said, her interest now piqued.

"Well, sometimes there's a blue police box, and sometimes there isn't, and the police box is, well, bigger on the inside than the outside. There's also a strange man who insists on being called 'The Doctor.'"

"And?"

"Some starfighters that look a lot like they are from Star Wars, some advanced weaponry, and other things…. Why do you ask?" 008 said nervously.

"Okay, I'm sold. I'll come with you on one condition."

"And that is?" 008 asked, hoping that her answer would not be reminiscent of what Jenni would have said.

"I want you to show me some of those things!"

008 laughed. "Well, that's better than what I was afraid you'd ask."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," 008 started, but he didn't have to finish. The waiter was there with their food. They took the food, and when the waiter had left, he said, "It was rather…how to put this? It was Jenni-esque."

"Oh," Kira said, and she laughed.

When they were done, they paid the bill and left.

The End

**A/N** I would like to thank all of you for reading this fan fiction and sticking with it through the end. If you have any suggestions for what I should write about next, please tell me in the form of a comment or a private message. Otherwise, I'll look forward to you guys reading my next fan fiction! I also plan on maybe continuing the series after a short break, so if you like that idea, please tell me. Otherwise I will just let this series die. As long as _one person_ okays the idea of continuing this, I will.


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